The Wandering Jew — Complete
leave it, while I had still strength to do so. Then, father, I spoke to
you of the choice of a profession; for sometimes, in waking moments,
I seemed to catch from afar the sound of an active and useful life,
laborious and free, surrounded by family affections. Oh! then I felt the
want of movement and liberty, of noble and warm emotions--of that life
of the soul, which fled before me. I told it you, father on my
knees, bathing your hands with my tears. The life of a workman or a
soldier--anything would have suited me. It was then you informed me,
that my adopted mother, to whom I owed my life--for she had taken me in,
dying of want, and, poor herself, had shared with me the scanty bread
of her child--admirable sacrifice for a mother!--that she," continued
Gabriel, hesitating and casting down his eyes, for noble natures blush
for the guilt of others, and are ashamed of the infamies of which they
are themselves victims, "that she, that my adopted mother, had but one
wish, one desire--"
"That of seeing you takes orders, my dear son," replied Father
d'Aigrigny; "for this pious and perfect creature hoped, that, in
securing your salvation, she would provide for her own: but she did not
venture to inform you of this thought, for fear you might ascribe it to
an interested motive."
"Enough, father!" said Gabriel, interrupting the Abbe d'Aigrigny, with
a movement of involuntary indignation; "it is painful for me to hear you
assert an error. Frances Baudoin never had such a thought."
"My dear son, you are too hasty in your judgments," replied Father
d'Aigrigny, mildly. "I tell you, that such was the one, sole thought of
your adopted mother."
"Yesterday, father, she told me all. She and I were equally deceived."
"Then, my dear son," said Father d'Aigrigny, sternly, "you take the word
of your adopted mother before mine?"
"Spare me an answer painful for both of us, father," said Gabriel,
casting down his eyes.
"Will you now tell me," resumed Father d'Aigrigny, with anxiety, "what
you mean to--"
The reverend father was unable to finish. Samuel entered the room, and
said: "A rather old man wishes to speak to M. Rodin."
"That is my name, sir," answered the socius, in surprise; "I am much
obliged to you." But, before following the Jew, he gave to Father
d'Aigrigny a few words written with a pencil upon one of the leaves of
his packet-book.
Rodin went out in very uneasy mood, to learn who could have come to seek
him in the Rue Saint-Francois. Father d'Aigrigny and Gabriel were left
alone together.
(14) It is only in respect to Missions that the Jesuits acknowledge the
papal supremacy.
(15) This rule is so strict in Jesuit Colleges, that if one of three
pupils leaves the other two, they separate out of earshot till the first
comes back.
CHAPTER XX. THE RUPTURE.
Plunged into a state of mortal anxiety, Father d'Aigrigny had taken
mechanically the note written by Rodin, and held it in his hand without
thinking of opening it. The reverend father asked himself in alarm, what
conclusion Gabriel would draw from these recriminations upon the
past; and he durst not make any answer to his reproaches, for fear of
irritating the young priest, upon whose head such immense interests now
reposed. Gabriel could possess nothing for himself, according to the
constitutions of the Society of Jesus. Moreover, the reverend father had
obtained from him, in favor of the Order, an express renunciation of
all property that might ever come to him. But the commencement of his
conversation seemed to announce so serious a change in Gabriel's views
with regard to the Company, that he might choose to break through the
ties which attached him to it; and in that case, he would not be legally
bound to fulfil any of his engagements.(16) The donation would thus be
cancelled de facto, just at the moment of being so marvellously realized
by the possession of the immense fortune of the Rennepont family, and
d'Aigrigny's hopes would thus be completely and for ever frustrated.
Of all these perplexities which the reverend father had experienced
for some time past, with regard to this inheritance, none had been more
unexpected and terrible than this. Fearing to interrupt or question
Gabriel, Father d'Aigrigny waited, in mute terror, the end of this
interview, which already bore so threatening an aspect.
The missionary resumed: "It is my duty, father, to continue this sketch
of my past life, until the moment of my departure for America. You will
understand, presently, why I have imposed on myself this obligation."
Father d'Aigrigny nodded for him to proceed.
"Once informed of the pretended wishes of my adopted mother, I resigned
myself to them, though at some cost of feeling. I left the gloomy abode,
in which I had passed my childhood and part of my youth, to enter one
of the seminaries of the Company. My resolution was not caused by an
irresistible religious vocation, but by a wish to discharge the sacred
debt I owed my adopted mother. Yet the true spirit of the religion of
Christ is so vivifying, that I felt myself animated and warmed by the
idea of carrying out the adorable precepts of our Blessed Saviour. To my
imagination, a seminary, instead of resembling the college where I had
lived in painful restraint, appeared like a holy place, where all that
was pure and warm in the fraternity of the Gospel would be applied to
common life--where, for example, the lessons most frequently taught
would be the ardent love of humanity, and the ineffable sweets of
commiseration and tolerance--where the everlasting words of Christ
would be interpreted in their broadest sense--and where, in fine, by
the habitual exercise and expansion of the most generous sentiments, men
were prepared for the magnificent apostolic mission of making the rich
and happy sympathize with the sufferings of their brethren, by unveiling
the frightful miseries of humanity--a sublime and sacred morality, which
none are able to withstand, when it is preached with eyes full of tears,
and hearts overflowing with tenderness and charity!"
As he delivered these last words with profound emotion, Gabriel's eyes
became moist, and his countenance shone with angelic beauty.
"Such is, indeed, my dear son, the spirit of Christianity; but one must
also study and explain the letter," answered Father d'Aigrigny, coldly.
"It is to this study that the seminaries of our Company are specially
destined. Now the interpretation of the letter is a work of analysis,
discipline, and submission--and not one of heart and sentiment."
"I perceive that only too well, father. On entering this new house, I
found, alas! all my hopes defeated. Dilating for a moment, my heart soon
sunk within me. Instead of this centre of life, affection, youth, of
which I had dreamed. I found, in the silent and ice-cold seminary,
the same suppression of every generous emotion, the same inexorable
discipline, the same system of mutual prying, the same suspicion, the
same invincible obstacles to all ties of friendship. The ardor which had
warmed my soul for an instant soon died out; little by little, I fell
back into the habits of a stagnant, passive, mechanical life, governed
by a pitiless power with mechanical precision, just like the inanimate
works of a watch."
"But order, submission and regularity are the first foundations of our
Company, my dear son."
"Alas, father! it was death, not life, that I found thus organized. In
the midst of this destruction of every generous principle, I devoted
myself to scholastic and theological studies--gloomy studies--a wily,
menacing, and hostile science which, always awake to ideas of peril,
contest, and war, is opposed to all those of peace, progress, and
liberty."
"Theology, my dear son," said Father d'Aigrigny, sternly, "is at once
a buckler and a sword; a buckler, to protect and cover the Catholic
faith--a sword, to attack and combat heresy."
"And yet, father, Christ and His apostles knew not this subtle science:
their simple and touching words regenerated mankind, and set freedom
over slavery. Does not the divine code of the Gospel suffice to teach
men to love one another? But, alas! far from speaking to us this
language, our attention was too often occupied with wars of religion,
and the rivers of blood that had flowed in honor of the Lord, and for
the destruction of heresy. These terrible lessons made our life still
more melancholy. As we grew near to manhood, our relations at the
seminary assumed a growing character of bitterness, jealousy and
suspicion. The habit of tale bearing against each other, applied to more
serious subjects, engendered silent hate and profound resentments. I
was neither better nor worse than the others. All of us, bowed down
for years beneath the iron yoke of passive obedience, unaccustomed to
reflection or free-will, humble and trembling before our superiors, had
the same pale, dull, colorless disposition. At last I took orders; once
a priest, you invited me, father, to enter the Company of Jesus, or
rather I found myself insensibly brought to this determination. How,
I do not know. For a long time before, my will was not my own. I went
through all my proofs; the most terrible was decisive; for some months,
I lived in the silence of my cell, practicing with resignation the
strange and mechanical exercises that you ordered me. With the exception
of your reverence, nobody approached me during that long space of time;
no human voice but yours sounded in my ear. Sometimes, in the night,
I felt vague terrors; my mind, weakened by fasting, austerity, and
solitude, was impressed with frightful visions. At other times, on the
contrary, I felt a sort of quiescence, in the idea that, having once
pronounced my vows, I should be delivered for ever from the burden of
thought and will. Then I abandoned myself to an insurmountable torpor,
like those unfortunate wretches, who, surprised by a snow-storm,
yield to a suicidal repose. Thus I awaited the fatal moment. At last,
according to the rule of discipline, choking with the death rattle,(17)
I hastened the moment of accomplishing the final act of my expiring
will--the vow to renounce it for ever."
"Remember, my dear son," replied Father d'Aigrigny, pale and tortured by
increasing anguish, "remember, that, on the eve of the day fixed for
the completion of your vows; I offered, according to the rule of our
Company, to absolve you from joining us--leaving you completely free,
for we accept none but voluntary vocations."
"It is true, father," answered Gabriel, with sorrowful bitterness;
"when, worn out and broken by three months of solitude and trial, I was
completely exhausted, and unable to move a step, you opened the door
of my cell, and said to me: 'If you like, rise and walk; you are free;
Alas! I had no more strength. The only desire of my soul, inert and
paralyzed for so long a period, was the repose of the grave; and
pronouncing those irrevocable vows, I fell, like a corpse, into your
hands."
"And, till now, my dear son, you have never failed in this corpse--like
obedience,--to use the expression of our glorious founder--because, the
more absolute this obedience, the more meritorious it must be."
After a moment's silence, Gabriel resumed: "You had always concealed
from me, father, the true ends of the Society into which I entered. I
was asked to abandon my free-will to my superiors, in the name of the
Greater Glory of God. My vows once pronounced, I was to be in your hands
a docile and obedient instrument; but I was to be employed, you told me,
in a holy, great and beauteous work. I believed you, father--how should
I not have believed you? but a fatal event changed my destiny--a painful
malady caused by--"