“Monroy was sublime,” I said. Had we not come only to see that great
actor?
“Which rôle did he play?” she asked. “I didn’t know.”
Completely given up to the tragedy she had quite simply relegated the
actor to his proper place.
* * *
One Good Friday she took me to Notre Dame to hear the sermon on the
Passion.
Spring had come in April. The moon when we arrived was mounting toward
the open sky just above the towers of the old cathedral, bathed in the
blue of the pure night. Inside, the crowd was so great that we could
not reach a church-warden’s pew, and with great difficulty I got a
chair for her at the back, in the midst of the throng.
The voice of the preacher, which had sounded thin to me as we entered,
reached us, distinct, insistent and powerful. It carried with it the
generosity of a heart that gives itself until it is exhausted. It
filled the immense edifice to the very shadows at the back, shadows
which covered also the transepts and the upper vaulting, making the
lighted portions of the church seem menaced by it on all sides.
We heard the story of the Mount of Olives. The Disciples went to sleep
while Jesus was enduring His agony. Likewise, about us and within us,
the moral life of others and ourselves suffers while we sleep. Later,
too late, when I awakened from my cruel sleep, I was destined to recall
with bitterness that warning which I had not heeded. We saw about us
all the visible and varied forms of cowardice, the cowardice of the
official, of the judge, of the crowd, of friends. All the truth of
human character shines out in the Gospel. In this series of denials,
one can see his own denying, just as one instinctively feels his
pockets when he hears the cry of “Thief.” I alone, perhaps, of those
present, gave the ceremony the interest of the mere amateur.
Next to us, an old news man, who had stopped his shouting only at the
door, crowding in through several rows of chairs, stood still, suddenly
captive, with his pile of papers under his arm. It was the death of
Righteousness. He uttered a long sob of indignation and pity, like a
half-uttered howl, held out his free arm before him in an involuntary
gesture, and then went away again upon his route. Outside once more he
tried to cry his papers, but emotion still gripped his throat. For an
instant he had offered himself to God. I have never known that instant;
I have never made that offering. It was now I who was callous.
When we left, the moon, detached from the towers, was sailing through
the open sky. The clear night, so blue and pure, enveloped the sombre
cathedral. Ranged along one side of the square the waiting automobiles
quivered incongruously at the foot of the old black building.
At last, we found our carriage. “Was it not beautiful?” Raymonde asked
immediately.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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