Hadrian the Seventh (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)
4/5
()
About this ebook
Of his many books, Hadrian the Seventh is Baron Corvo’s best known. In this fantastical novel—which includes a flourish of autobiography—a humble British man named George Arthur Rose is elected Pope, taking the name Hadrian VII. He unfolds a grand plan to reform the church and better the world, but can’t help but push his own agenda as well.
Related to Hadrian the Seventh (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)
Related ebooks
Another Winter, Another Spring: A Love Remembered Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMurder in Four Degrees Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerica's First Great Depression: Economic Crisis and Political Disorder after the Panic of 1837 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Night Falls on Damascus: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Cumbrian Folk Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To Wake the Dead Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing Grace: A Vietnam War Mystery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings1862 Diary of Mary M. Baker from Orrington, Maine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA CHILD OF THE JAGO Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cemetery of Swallows Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Minister’s Wooing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMysteries of Modern London Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Curious Quest Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Blind Spot Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This Man is Dangerous: A Lemmy Caution Thriller Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Incredible Crime: A Cambridge Mystery Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Death Has Deep Roots: A Second World War Mystery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Road of Bones: A Journey to the Dark Heart of Russia Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5No Justice for David Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLost Sandusky Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWaterloo: The Aftermath Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Conquering Family: The Conquering Family Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlitz Families: The Children who Stayed Behind Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAlison Gordon Five-Book Bundle: The Dead Pull Hitter, Safe at Home, Night Game, Striking Out, and Prairie Hardball Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Star Spangled Mikado Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHarkaway's Sixth Column Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEliot Ness and the Mad Butcher: Hunting America's Deadliest Unidentified Serial Killer at the Dawn of Modern Criminology Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWorld War ll London Blitz Diary Volume 3 1942-1943 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Danger on the Train Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Historical Fiction For You
Demon Copperhead: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebecca Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Crow Mary: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady Tan's Circle of Women: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House of Eve Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Journals of Sacajewea: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paris Apartment: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Yellow Wife: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Magic Lessons: The Prequel to Practical Magic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Have Always Lived in the Castle Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Invisible Hour: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Euphoria Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bournville Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hallowe'en Party: Inspiration for the 20th Century Studios Major Motion Picture A Haunting in Venice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Island of Sea Women: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Red Tent - 20th Anniversary Edition: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House Is on Fire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sold on a Monday: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Grapes of Wrath Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Rules of Magic: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Tender Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quiet American Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hang the Moon: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Carnegie's Maid: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I, Claudius Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Hadrian the Seventh (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)
77 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It has been discussed to the point of nausea just how much this book is a reflection of its author, but most of the time these discussions say vastly more about the reader than about the author. Suffice it to say that I find this book an endlessly moving though eccentric search for love, and for the realization of life's purpose. As I write this, I am re-reading HADRIAN for perhaps the tenth time in half a century, and the initial astonioshment at its greatness remains unchanged. A small matter: I am frankly amazed that I had never before noticed the two typos on pp 92 and 93 of the Penguin edition!
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This book seriously disappointed me. I really should have liked it – it was published by NYRB, one of my favorite publishers, has a bizarre premise – obscure Catholic reject George Arthur Rose is elected pope – and is set in a parallel reality, all of which appealed to me. Unfortunately, all the characters are horribly, horribly flat and the wish-fulfillment aspect becomes extremely grating. I can’t recommend it as a good read – more of a curiosity. Still, it is odd enough that it’s good NYRB published it. That’s how I’ve felt about other books that they published but that I disliked – it’s good that they’re out there but not for me.The book starts out well. George Arthur Rose relates at length his persecution out of the Catholic hierarchy then the choosing of the new pope is described. The author is able to describe all the inanities and labyrinthine process that goes into both. This still might not appeal to other people, but sometimes I like things like that – to land in the middle of a scene with all its jargon. After he becomes pope, there is still some fun to be had – mostly with the new pope Hadrian going rogue. Some of the side stories of his surrounding advisors and cardinals are interesting also. The style throughout is very idiosyncratic, but I generally like that rather than being annoyed by it.After that, the book starts to become irritating. The other cardinals/Catholic officials who oppose Hadrian are obviously jealous and corrupt – there’s really no complexity to those characters – they’re just bad. For some reason, a Socialist group in England opposes him and becomes obsessed with him, instead of not giving a shit about the pope, as one might expect – though in this reality, England apparently cares about Roman Catholics, as opposed to the toleration to prejudice usually seen towards them around that time. Again, the representative they send to bother Hadrian is just a venal, uncultured asshole. To add to that, a slutty woman - who threw herself at Hadrian when he was Rose - goes along with the asshole. Needy, whiny, vain – she’s a whole bunch of stereotypes tossed together. Of course anyone who opposes the pope has horrible motives and is just a jealous toady. Other wish fulfillment parts are seen in the plot – the new pope forgives all his former enemies – so magnanimous! – and helps a seminary student who is obviously supposed to be a younger version of himself – the boy is being picked on by stupid bullies for being aloof and above the petty politics. There are some deeply distasteful plot parts that the author couldn’t have imagined. The pope seems a little too obsessed with the attractive young son of Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy in this reality. Also, the pope supports the German ruler in taking over territories in the rest of Europe. Or something like that – wasn’t paying too much attention at that point. The end is also really irritating. Ugh.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/51145 Hadrian the Seventh, by Frederick Baron Corvo (Frederick William Rolfe) (read 31 Dec 1971) Rolfe was born in London on July 22, 1860, and died in Venice on Oct 23, 1913. He, obviously, was a nut. The concept of this book--a rejected seminary student ordained and elected Pope--is silly and the events of his pontificate--of one year's duration--are even sillier. Wish fulfillment dreaming by a neurotic.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Quite a remarkable book. On one level, it is wishfullfillment for the rather shabby and occasionally sleazy life of Frederick Rolfe --what if a failed priest was suddenly elected pope? But Hadrian VII is a much nobler character than his author, and I often find myself remembering the last line "Pray for his soul. He was so tired." Incidentally, it also plays out a quite remarkable alternate history in which Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and Wilhelm II of Germany are the redeemers of Europe from Bolshevism etc.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My favorite self-delusional novel. A young religious is chosen to be pope - an amazing notion. I think that "Frederick Baron" was the author's legal name and he tacked "Corvo" on the end as part of his megalomania. It's good reading. Actually, I have an old Penguin edition which has held up. It's worth somebody's time. Good beach reading since it's not that long.
Book preview
Hadrian the Seventh (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) - Frederick Baron Corvo
HADRIAN THE SEVENTH
FREDERICK BARON CORVO
This 2011 edition published by Barnes & Noble, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.
Barnes & Noble, Inc.
122 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10011
ISBN: 978-1-4114-3879-8
CONTENTS
PROOIMION
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
PROOIMION
IN mind he was tired, worn out, by years of hope deferred, of loneliness, of unrewarded toil. In body he was almost prostrate by the pain of an arm on the tenth day of vaccination. Bodily pain stung him like a personal affront. Some one will have to be made miserable for this,
he once said during the throes of a toothache. He was no stranger to mental fatigue: but, when to that was added corporeal anguish, he came near collapse. His capacity for work was constricted: the mere sight of his writing materials filled him with disgust. But, because he had a horror of being discovered in a state of inaction, after breakfast he sat down as usual and tried to write. Dazed in a torrent of ideas, he painfully halted for words: stumbling in a maze of words, he frequently lost the thread of his argument: now and then, in sheer exhaustion, his pen remained immobile. He sat in a small low armchair which was covered with shabby brocade, dull-red and green. An old drawing-board, of the large size denominated Antiquarian, rested on his knees. The lower edge frayed the brocade on the arms of the chair. His little yellow cat Flavio lay asleep on the tilted board, nestling in the bend of his left elbow. That was the only living creature to whom he ever spoke with affection as well as with politeness. His left hand steadied his ms., the sheets of which were clipped together at the top by a metal clip. At the upper edge of the board a couple of Publishers' Dummies reposed, having the outward similitude of six-shilling novels: but he had filled their pages with his archaic handwriting. The first contained thoughts—not great thoughts, nor thoughts selected on any particular principle, but phrases and opinions such as Sophokles' denunciation,
or Gabriele d'Annunzio's sentence
Old legitimate monarchies are everywhere declining, and Demos stands ready to swallow them down its miry throat.
The second was his private dictionary which (as an artificer in verbal expression), he had compiled, taking Greek words from Liddell-and-Scott and Latin words from Andrews, enlarging his English vocabulary with such simple but pregnant formations as the adjective hybrist
from or the noun gingilism
from gingilismus.
He was looking askance at his ms. In two hours, he had written no more than fourteen lines; and these were deformed by erasures of words and sentences, by substitutions and additions. He struck an upward line from left to right across the sheet: laid down his pen: lifted board, cat, books, and ms., from his knees; and laid them by. He could not work.
He poked the little fire burning in the corner of a fire-clayed grate. He was shivering: for, though March was going out like nine lions, he was very lightly clad in a blue linen suit such as is worn over all by engineers. He had an impish predilection for that garb since a cantankerous red-nosed prelate, anxious to sneer at unhaloed poverty, inanely had said that he looked like a Neapolitan. He brushed the accumulation of cigarette-ash from the front of his jacket and seized a pair of spring-dumb-bells: but at once returned them, warned by the pain of his left arm-pit. He took up the newspaper which he had brought with him after breakfast, and read again the news from Rome and the news of Russia. The former, he could see, was merely the kind of subterfuge which farthing journalists are wont to use when they are excluded from a view of facts. It said much, and signified nothing. Our Special Correspondent
was being hoodwinked; and knew it: but did not like to confess it; and so indulged his imagination. Something was occurring in Rome: something mysterious was occurring in Rome. That could be deduced from the dispatch: but nothing more. The news of Russia was a tale of unparalleled ghastliness. It emanated from Berlin: no direct communication with Russia having taken place for a fortnight.
How exquisitely horrible it is,
he said to Flavio; and I believe it's perfectly true. The Tzar,—well, that was to be expected. But the Tsaritza,—though, if ever a woman bore her fate in her face, she did, poor creature. Those dreadful haunted eyes of hers! That hard old young soft face! The innocent babies! How abominably cynically cruel! Yet there have been omens and portents of just such a tragedy as this any time these last few years. They must have known it was coming. Or is this another example of the onlookers seeing most of the game?
He fetched a book of newspaper cuttings, and turned the pages. Here you are, Flavio,
he said to the sleeping cat; and here—and here. If these are not forewarnings—well!
He sat down again, and studied certain paragraphs attentively.
EDUCATION BY THE KNOUT
PETERSBURG.—All Russia is in a state of unrest and seething with discontent. The very air is alive with the rumours of tumults on the one hand and of coups d'état on the other. The strangest stories are being bandied about as to what is taking place at Kiev, Sula, and all parts of the Empire, in fact, but especially in Moscow. There, it seems, while students and members of the higher classes are being thrown into prison by the hundred—not a few of them being packed off to Siberia—the workers are being treated with quite extraordinary consideration. They are even allowed to say their say and hold public meetings without let or hindrance, a thing unheard of in Russia. In Petersburg itself an ominous state of things prevails, and the city is completely in the hands of the police and the military. The streets are thronged with gensdarmes; even private houses are packed with soldiers; and never a week passes without some disorder arising or some public demonstration being made. In February a terrible scene occurred in the house of Nicholas II., a sort of People's Palace. In the course of a theatrical performance there some students threw down from the gallery into the body of the hall leaflets in which they demanded redress of their grievances. The place was crowded with law-abiding people for the most part; nevertheless the gensdarmerie who are always within hail, rushed in and simply trampled under foot all who came in their way. One great fellow was seen to deliberately stamp on the face of a poor lad who had fallen, cracking it like a nut. How many were injured is unknown and probably will remain so. On Sunday the state of things was even worse. During the previous week the students had sent to the leading journals, and even to the police, a formal announcement that they intended to hold a demonstration in the Newsky Prospect to demand in constitutional fashion the redress of their grievances. It was taken for granted that measures would be taken to prevent the meeting, and the Newsky was crowded for the occasion with the usual loungers and pleasure-seekers. But so far as everyone was aware the police seemed to have done nothing in the matter, and it was known only to a few that the courtyards of the great houses of the neighbourhood were filled with gensdarmes and soldiers. Up to twelve o'clock all went well; then quite suddenly not only students but working men began to stream into the Newsky from every side-street; and within a very few minutes the place was one vast crowd. In the square before the Kasan Cathedral alone there were 3,000 at least. Suddenly seditious cries were raised, red flags were waved, stones were thrown, and in the midst of it all the gensdarmes began a mad gallop through the crowd. It was a ghastly sight, for they slashed right and left with their swords, even at the bystanders bent only on escaping. Many were wounded, some were killed—how many no two accounts agree—and in the course of the following week hundreds of arrests were made. Since then other demonstrations of the same kind have been held, and will continue to be held, let the cost be what it may, the students declare, until a clean sweep has been made of the police regime under which Russia is groaning.
THE GATHERING OF THE STORM
M. Baltaicheff's murder has drawn the world's attention to the present state of things in Russia—which is much worse than most people imagine. The present movement is not confined to the students alone, though it is that class which makes most noise. The revolutionary fever has gained a hold of the lower classes—Brains and Brawn as we said yesterday have combined, and the combination is formidable. More significant, however, than anything else, if it be true, is the statement of the Neue Freie Presse that during the demonstrations in the Kasan Square in Petersburg a detachment of infantry was called upon to fire upon the crowd, the men thrice refused to obey, were marched back to barracks, no enquiry being subsequently held, and that similar incidents have occurred elsewhere. With universal service the Army is only the people in uniform. Any popular feeling must sooner or later touch the Army, and if the soldiers cannot be depended upon to shoot, the game of absolutism is up. The great cataclysm may be nearer at hand than is generally supposed.
SIGNS OF SMOULDERING REVOLT
PETERSBURG.—In two of the districts of the Poltava Government workmans' riots have occurred in consequence of the systematic repression of Little Russia
by Greater Russia.
The journal Pridjeprowski Krai gave the first intimation of the state of affairs, and was promptly suspended for eight months.
PETERSBURG.—The murder of the Procurator of the Holy Synod is regarded in a measure as the symptom of the general situation in Russia. It is reported that the chateau of the Duke of Mecklenburgh in S.E. Russia has been pillaged and destroyed by rioters.
BERLIN.—On the arrival of the express train from Berlin at Wirballen on the Russian frontier today, a passenger was arrested, and Nihilist documents were discovered in his trunks. This is the third Nihilist arrest within the fortnight. The Berlin police have received information from Petersburg of numerous revolutionists having recently left France. They are now maintaining from Berlin a vigorous agitation against the Tsar's Government. From London, too, the whereabouts of several suspects have been reported. In most cases the Berlin authorities are powerless to effect arrests, but they always supply full information to Russia, so that suspicious characters are always detained in passing the frontier.
ANARCHY ADVANCING
The Kreuzzeitung, which is unusually well-informed in Russian affairs, expresses the opinion that one of the immediate consequences of the triumph of Japan will be a general rising of the Russian peasants against their landlords, and of the army against the aristocracy. The same paper declares that revolutionary agents of Social Democratic tendencies have long been systematically poisoning the minds of the people.
He turned back to THE GATHERING OF THE STORM, and read the ominous paragraph again. Warning enough, in all conscience,
he said: first, the Public Prosecutor assassinated at Odessa, then the Chief of Secret Police of Petersburg, then the Procurator of the Holy Synod; and now a hekatombe, sovereign, royalty, aristocracy, government, bureaucracy, all annihilated, and Anarchy in excelsis. France will take fire at any minute now, that's absolutely certain. Oh, how horrible! But we're all Christians, Flavio; and this is only one of the many funny ways in which we love one another.
He rose and went to the window. The yellow cat deliberately stretched himself, yawned, and followed; and proceeded to carry out a wonderful scheme of feints and ambuscades in regard to a ping-pong ball which was kept for his proper diversion. The man looked on almost lovingly. Flavio at length captured the ball, took it between his fore-paws, and posed with all the majesty of a lion of Trafalgar Square. Anon he uttered a little low gurgle of endearment, fixing the great eloquent mystery of amber and black velvet eyes, tardy, grave, upon his human friend. No notice was vouchsafed. Flavio got up; and gently rubbed his head against the nearest hand.
My boy!
the man murmured; and he lifted the little cat on to his shoulder. He went downstairs. He could not work; and he was going to take an easy; and he wanted a novel, he said to his landlady. He feared that he had read all the books in the house. Yes, and those in the drawing-room too. After a quarter of an hour, application to a neighbour produced three miserable derelicts, a nameless sixpenny shudder, a Braddon, and an Edna Lyall. Not to seem ungracious, he took them upstairs; and pitched them into a corner, to be returned upon occasion. That salient trait of his character, the desire not to be ungracious, the readiness to be unselfish and self-sacrificing, had done him incalculable injury. This world is infested by innumerable packs of half-licked cubs and quarter-cultivated mediocrities who seem to have nothing better to do than to buzz about harassing and interfering with their betters. Out of courtesy, out of kindness, he was used to give way; but all the same he tenaciously knew and clung to his original purpose. He knew that delay was his enemy: yet he invariably would stand aside and let himself be delayed. And now towards the end of his youth, he was poor, lonely, a misanthropic altruist.
He returned to his armchair, breathing a long sigh of irritation and exhaustion: broke up three cigarette dottels for a (tobacco famine was afflicting him), rolled them in a fresh paper, and applied a match. Flavio, with an indulgent protestant mew, bounded from his knee to a bedroom chair; and coiled himself up to sleep.
The armchair was placed directly in front of the fireplace, the ordinary garret-coloured iron fireplace and mantel of a suburban lodging-house attic. To the grey wall above the mantel a large sheet of brown packing-paper was tacked. On this background were pinned photographs of the Hermes of Herculaneum, the terra-cotta Sebastian of South Kensington, Donatello's liparose David and the vivid David of Verrocchio, the wax model of Cellini's Perseys, an unknown Rugger XV. prized for a single example of the rare feline-human type, and the O.U.D.S. Sebastian of Twelfth Night of 1900. Tucked into the edges of these were Italian picture post-cards presenting Andrea del Sarto's young St. John, Alessandro Filipepi's Primavera, a page from an old Salon catalogue showing Friant's Wrestlers, another from an old Harper's Magazine shewing Boucher's Runners, a cheap and lovely chromo of an olive-skinned black-haired cornflower-crowned Pancratius in white on a gold ground, the visiting-cards of five literary agents, and a post-card tersely inscribed Verro precipitevolissimevolmente. The mantel-shelf contained stone bottles of ink, pipes, a miniature in a closed morocco case, a cast of Cardinal Andrea della Valle's seal from Oxford, two pairs of silver spectacles in chagreen cases, four tiny ingots of pure copper, a sponge gum bottle, and an open book with painted covers showing Eros at the knees of Psyche and a mysterious group of divers in the clear of the moon. The door was at a yard to the left of the fireplace, at a right-angle. Uncared-for clothes, black serge and blue linen, hung upon it. A small wooden wash-stand stood between the door and the armchair, convenient to the writer's hand. A straw-board covered the hole in its top; and supported ink-bottles, pens, pen-knife, scissors, a lamp, a biscuit-tin of cigarette-dottels, sixteen exquisite Greek intaglj. On the lower shelf stood a row of books-of-reference. Between the wash-stand and the fire was the chair whereon Flavio slumbered (if one may use so indelicate a word of so delicate a cat). About four feet of wall extended on the right of the fireplace. Pinned there were a pencil design for a Diamastigosis, a black and white panel of young Sophokles as Choregos after Salamis done on the back of an Admiralty chart, a water colour of Tarquinio Santacroce and Alexander VI., a pair of foils and fencing masks, and a curious Greco-Italian seal shewing St. George as a winged-footed Perseys wearing what looked like the Garter Mantle and labelled Substitutes for shelves stood against the lower part of the wall. A rush-basket, closed and full of letters, set up on end, supported files of the American Saturday Review, the Author, the Outlook, the Salpinx, Reynards's, and the Pall Mall Gazette, and a feather broop for dusting books and papers or for correcting Flavio when obstreperous. Another rush-basket, placed length-wise on a bedroom chair, held a row of books, ms. note-books, duodecimo classics of Plantin, Estienne, Maittaire, with English and American editions of the writer's own works. The third wall was pierced by two small windows, wide open to the full always. A chest of drawers protruded endways into the room. Its top was used as a standing desk. The drawers opened towards the fourth wall. Sheaves of letters in metal clips hung at the end. Between it and the armchair, more shelves were contrived of rush-baskets placed beneath and upon a small wooden table. Books-of-reference, lexicons, and a box of blank paper, congregated here convenient to the writer's hand. The little table drawer contained note-paper, envelopes, sealing-wax, and stamps. The whole was arranged so that, when once ensconced in the armchair before the fire with his writing-board on his knees, the digladiator could reach all his weapons by a simple extension of his arms. The attic was eleven feet square, low-pitched, and with half the ceiling slanting to the fourth foot from the floor on the fourth wall. Here was a camp-bed, a small mirror, and a towel-rail, three pairs of two- six- and ten-pound dumb-bells, a pair of boots on trees, a bottle of eucalyptus and a spray-producer.
His eyes, as they wandered round the room, met these things. He took a towel, and went downstairs to the bath-room to wash his hands. On returning he enticed Flavio with a bit of string. The cat was unwilling to play: gazed at him with innocent imperscrutable round eyes: elaborately yawned and requested permission to retire. The odour of the kitchen-dinner was perceptible. The door was opened; and shut.
He put the butt of his cigarette in an earthenware jar on his left for future use. The maid appeared with his lunch, a basinful of bread and milk. Following some subconscious train of thought, he stretched himself, took the little mirror from the wall and went to the window.
It's one of your bad days, my friend,
he commented, regarding his own image. You look all your age, and twelve years more. Draw down those feathered brows, man. Never mind the upright furrow which makes you look stern. Draw them down; and open your eyes; and look alert. Do something to counteract the tender thin line of that mouth. You mustn't let yourself relax like this. It brings out your wrinkles, and shews the sparseness of your hair. If you had an inch more thigh, and say a couple of inches more shin, you might look people down a little more: but with that meek subservient aspect—how Luckock used to chaff about it!—no wonder everyone takes advantage of you. What's the good of having your fastidious mind clearly written on that fastidious mouth if you don't insist on behaving fastidiously. Cultivate the art of looking as though you were about to say No. You always can say Yes after No. But, if you begin with Yes, as you always do, you prevent yourself from ever saying No. That's why everyone can swindle you. You're far too anxious to give way. Buck up a bit, you ugly little thing! Ugly as you are, you're neither vulgar nor common-place. Straighten your back, and open your eyes wide, and pull yourself together.
He put the mirror in its place; and again cast a glance round the room, seeking something to read, something, anything, that was not too recent in his mind. He picked up at random one of the rejected novels. It was called Donovan. He remembered having seen (in an ex-tea-pedlar's magazine) a print of the writer thereof. He also remembered that he had found her self-conscious pose and labial conformation intensely antipathetic. His sense of beauty was a great deal more than acute. Let his predilection (which was for reticent expert virtue in the male and for innate delicate modesty in the female) once be satisfied, and the door to his favour lay open.
However,
he argued with himself, she sells her books by tens of thousands while we don't sell ours by tens of hundreds. We'll have a look at her work, and see how she does it.
He ate his bread and milk; and seriously and deliberately set himself to dissect and analyse the book.
The manner of the portrayal of a youth, of an abnormal type of youth, the Sentient-Modest type, at once disgusted him by its inadequacy and superficiality. The male human animal is omnipresent: it is not difficult for an observant and careful writer to describe the things as they appear. But the author's sex had prevented her from knowing, and therefore, from describing the things as they are. It is doubtful whether Man ever mentally knew Woman. It is certain that Woman never knew Man; except in cases of occession—the author of The Gadfly for example. He found the image of Donovan fairly convincing: not so the real. Donovan, in his eponymous history, obviously was the creation of a good sweet-minded woman, who created him in her own image.
The student several times was at the point of closing the book from sheer annoyance. Only the knowledge that he had nothing else to do, and the desire to gain instruction, caused him to persevere. His temper only was logical in so far as it endowed him with the faculty of pursuance. He began many things: he followed them: oftentimes the influence of Luna on his environment obliged him to pause: but invariably he returned to them—even after long years he returned to them—; and then, slowly, surely, he concluded what he had begun. He had tenacity—the feline pertinacity of vigorous untainted English blood. Cigarette after cigarette he rolled, and smoked. He frequently turned back and read a chapter over again. Flavio mewed for admittance. He took him on his knee: and continued reading, stroking the little cat meanwhile, tickling his larynx till he purred content. So the dull March afternoon passed. At five, the maid brought a tray containing black coffee and dripping toast. At half-past six, he took a bath and attended to his appearance, execrating the pain of his swollen arm and the difficulty of keeping it out of the water. He dined at half-past seven on some soup, and haricot-beans with butter, and a baked apple. Meanwhile he counted the split infinitives in the day's Pall Mall Gazette. When he was adolescent, an Oxford tutor had said of him that he possessed a critical faculty of no mean order. At the time, he had not understood the saying perfectly: but he cultivated the faculty. He taught himself in a very bitter school, the arts of selection and discrimination, and the art of annihilating rubbish. To this perhaps was due his complete psychical detachment from other men. He trod upon so many worms. And few things are more exasperating than a man of whom it truly may be said A chiel's amang ye takin' notes.
After dinner, he returned to his attic with his cup and the coffee-pot: and resumed his task. In time, he forgot the pain of his arm: he even forgot the usual terrified anticipation of the late postman's knock, such was his faculty for concentration. He smoked cigarettes and sipped black coffee now and then, oblivious of Flavio who returned from a walk about eleven and promptly went to sleep on the foot of the bed. A little after midnight, he reached the end of the book: turned back and examined the last chapter again; and put it down.
Yes,
he said, she's a dear good woman. Her book—well—her book is cheap, awkward, vulgar,—but it's good. It's unpalteringly ugly and simple and good. Evidently it's best to be good. It pays. . . . Anyhow it's bound to pay in the long run.
He pushed Flavio's chair to the wall near the door: by its side he placed the wash-stand from the left of his armchair. He disposed the armchair also against the wall, leaving a cleared space of garret-coloured drugget between the dead fire and the bed. This was his gymnasium.
If a book like that pays,
he reflected, it must be that there's a lot of people who care for books about the Good. Why not do one of that sort instead of casting folk-lore and history before publishers who turn and rend you? The pity is that the Good should be so dreadfully dowdy. Evidently and are just as distinct as they were in the days of the Broad-browed One. Sophisms again! Why can't you be honest and simple instead of subtile and complex? You're just like your own cat ambuscading a ping-pong ball as strategically and as scrupulously as though it were a mouse. For goodness' sake don't try to deceive yourself. It's all very well to pose before the world: but there's no one here to see you now. Strip, man, strip stark. You perfectly know that the Good always is admirable, whether it be dowdy or chic; and that what you call the Beautiful is no more than a matter of opinion, worth,—well, generally speaking, not worth six and eight-pence.
He threw all his clothes on the armchair: picked his trousers out of the heap and folded them lengthwise over the towel-rail: powdered his arm with borax and bound cotton-wool over it: looked at his dumb-bells while he brushed his hair: sprayed the room with eucalyptus; and got into bed. Extreme fatigue and pain rendered him almost hysterical. His thoughts expressed themselves in ejaculations when he had tied a handkerchief over his eyes, straightened his legs, and laid his right cheek on the pillow.
"Yes! It pays to be good—just simple goodness pays. I know, oh I know. I always knew it.
"God, if ever You loved me, hear me, hear me. De profundis ad Te, ad Te clamavi. Don't I want to be good and clean and happy? What desire have I cherished since my boyhood save to serve in the number of Your mystics? What but that have I asked of You Who made me?
"Not a chance do You give me—ever—ever——.
"Listen! How can I serve You? How be happy, clean, or good, while You keep me so sequestered?
"Oh I know of that psalm where it is written that You set apart for Yourself the godly. Am I godly? Ah no: nor even goodly. I'm Your prisoner writhing in my fetters, fettered, impotent, utterly unhappy.
"Only he, who is good and clean, is happy. I am clean, God, but neither good nor happy. Not alone can a man be good or happy. Force, which generates no one thing, is not force. All intelligence must be active, potent. I'm intelligent. So, O God, You made me. Therefore I must be active. Of my nature I must act. For the chance to act, I languish. I am impotent and inactive always. He, who wishes to be good, strives to do good. Deeds must be done to others by the doer. Therefore I, in my loneliness, am futile. Friends? And which of them have You left me faithful these twelve years of my solitude, God? Not one. Andrews, faithless; and Aubrey, faithless; Brander, faithless; Lancaster, faithless; Strages, faithless and perfidious; Scuttle also; Fareham, Roole, and Nicholas, faithless; Tatham, faithless; that detestable and deceitful Blackcote who came fawning upon me crying 'Courage! You shall suffer no more as you have suffered!' and then robbed me of months and years of labour. Ah! and Lawrence, my little Lawrence, faithless.
"Women? What do I know of women. Nothing.
"Fiat justitia—well, there's Caerleon. But a bishop is very far above me; and his friendship is only condescension,—honest, genial, kind, but—condescension. Still, he wishes me well. I truly think it. But if only he would believe me, trust me, shew faith in me, and absolutely trust me,—I might do what the mouse did for the lion.
"Strong? But why do I name my splendid master. Strong of nature and Strong of name and station, Strong of body and Strong of mind, immensely my superior altogether, knowing all my weakness and all my imperfection: who, to me, is as much like You as any man can be! It is only grand indulgence and urbanity on his part which make him know me; and, when the sun lacks splendour, only then will Megaloprepes need me, only then Kalos Kagathos perchance may need me.
"Why, O God, have You made me strange, uncommon, such a mystery to my fellow-creatures, not a 'man among men' like other people?
"Do I want to appear like other people?
"No, no, certainly not: but—Lord God, am I such a ruffian as to merit exile?
"Oh of course I'm a sinner, vile and shameful. But, God, look at the wreck which You have let them make of me and my life. You have some purpose in it all. Oh you must have, if You are, God; and I know that You are. O God, I thank You.
"But look,—haven't I tried and toiled and suffered? Yet You never allow me any satisfaction, any gain or reward for all my trouble. No: but You always let some shameless brigand rob me, snatching the fair fruit of my labours.
"Yes: I know how I dream of certain pleasures, certain luxuries, cleanness, whiteness, freshness, and simplicity, and the life of quiet healthful vigorous and serene well-doing, all in secret, and all unostentatious, which, when once I achieve success, I will have. I know all about that. But You know also I that never should use success in that way, if You gave it to me. Now did I ever use success for myself and not for others? No: I couldn't endure the eternal silent wistful vision of Your Maiden-Mother.
"You know why I want freedom, power, and money—just to make a few people happy, just to put things right a bit, just to make things easy, just to straighten out tangled lives whose tangles make me rage because I myself am helpless. Is that wrong? No—I swear my aim is single and unselfish. I don't want credit even. You well know that You made me all-denuded of the power of loving anybody, of the power of being loved by any Self-contained, You have made me. I shall always be detached and apart from others.
"Murmur? No. I never have murmured—nor will murmur.
"Truly, though, I should like to love, to be loved: but, so long I have been alone and lonely, I suppose I must go on like that always till the end. They are frightened of me, even when they come to the very verge of loving. They are frightened because of certain labels which I frequently use to put on others: frightened lest I should fit them also some day with a label. Oh, often they have told me that they wouldn't like me to be against them.
"I will stop that, O God, if You desire it. But, instead of it, what? I think You mean me not to waste the one talent You have given. Then, I beg of You, give me scope. I must act.
"No: I am not doing well at present—not my best. Oh, I know it, and I loathe it. All my life is a pose. Somehow or other I have taken the pose, or stolid stupids force me into the pose, of strange recondite haughty genius, very stubtile, very learned, inaccessible,—everything that's foolish. God, You know what a sham I am: how silly this is: how very little I know really. Don't I know it too? Don't I always tell them? Then they say that I'm modest—me—ha!—modest!
Here's the truth, by my One Hope of Salvation. I am frightened of all men, known and unknown; and of women I go into violent terror: though I always do say superb and hard things to the one, and all pretty gentle soft things to the other, while writing pitilessly of them both:—for I'm frightened of them, frightened; and I want to avoid them; and to keep them off me. Therefore I pose. And, therefore also, I provide an image which they can worship, like, or loathe, as it pleases, or displeases, or strikes awe—and they generally loathe it. All the time, while they manifest their feelings, I look on like a child at Punch and Judy.
Oh, it's wrong, very wrong, wrong altogether. But what can I do? God, tell me, clearly unmistakeably and distinctly tell me, tell me what I must do—and make me do it.
He got out of bed: took his rosary from his trousers' pocket; and returned. During the fifth meditation on the Finding of The Lord in the Temple, he fell asleep.
Dr. Courtleigh and Dr. Talacryn?
he repeated as a query, in the tone of one to whom Beelzebub and the Archangel Periel have been announced at eleven o'clock on the morning of a working day.
Yes,
the maid replied. Clergymen. One is that bishop who came before.
The bishop who came before! And——What's the other like?
Oh, quite old and feeble—rather stoutish—but he's been a fine handsome man in his day. He wears a red neck-tie under his collar.
Well—I—am! . . . Thanks. I'll be down in a minute.
George put his writing-board away and brushed the front of his blue linen jacket, mentally and corporeally pulling himself together.
Flavio, I should just like to know the meaning of this. I rather wish that I had Iulo here to back me up. If they are meditating mischief, an athletic and quarrelsome youngster, with an eye like a basilisk and a mouth full of torrential English, would be an excellent trump to play. Mischief? What nonsense! Don't you give way to your nerves, man. Respectable epistatai do not habitually engage in mischief, as you are well aware. You have nothing to fear: so put on a mask—the superior one with a tinge of disdain in it—and brace yourself up to resist the devil; and go downstairs at once to see him flee.
The two visitors were in the dining-room, a confined drab and aniline room rather over-filled with indistinct but useful furniture. When George entered, they stood up—grave important men, of over forty and seventy years respectively, dark-haired and robust, white-haired and of picturesque and supercilious mien. George went straight to the younger prelate: kneeled; and kissed the episcopal ring.
Your Eminency will understand that I do not wish to be disrespectful,
he said to the senior, with as much quiet antipathy as could be crowded into one man's voice: but the Bishop of Caerleon calls himself my friend; and I am at a loss to know to what I may attribute the honour of Your Eminency's presence, or the manner in which you will allow me to receive you.
I hope, Mr. Rose, that you will accept my blessing as well as Dr. Talacryn's,
the Cardinal-Archbishop replied in a voice where hauteur strangely struggled with timidity. He extended his hand. George instantly took it; and respectfully kneeled again, noting that this ring contained a cameo instead of the cardinalitial sapphire. Then he caused his guests to become seated. The atmosphere seemed to him laden with the invigorating aroma of possibilities.
"Zmnts¹ wishes to ask you a few questions, the young bishop began;
and he thought you would not take it amiss if I were