The Recognitions (Dalkey Archive edition) (75 page)

Gwyon, seated firmly, feet planted wide apart on the floor as though the hull were rolling, watched him standing there looking out through the glass. Outside the window, the snow fell in heavier smaller particles, at different angles to the earth, here in foreground from right to left, and beyond from left to right, not swirling but apparently on separate planes. There was a long pause before he spoke, more quietly, without turning from the glass, —And when the seed began to grow, ’twas like a garden full of snow . . . do you remember that?

Attentive as he was, Reverend Gwyon did not seem to be listening: all of his attention was in his eyes which, narrow and widen as they might with the expressions of his face, had not lost their gleam. Since the moment he had, as it were, almost tumbled into the tailsheets, he sat erect and more firm at the head of the table. His face, which had reflected coming forth from his own memory to the present, and then retreating to extreme confines of memory lying centuries beyond his years, now seemed to embrace them all in sudden intensity as he leaned forward.

At that moment Janet came in with a sail of wrapping paper. —If Reverend will write their name on this, she said, reefing it, —for I cannot write foreign, and she handed over the stub of a black crayon. Subdued, with a quick look at the fishbones and not elsewhere, she took that plate in a square gloved hand and went out, leaving Gwyon staring at the wrapping paper, the concentration in his face gone as suddenly as it had come there. Then his hand came up slowly and plotted the words of address to Estremadura. His lips moved, and seemed to draw the clear even whisper across the smooth table to themselves.

—And if beauty did provoke thieves, sooner than gold? The path
I’ve come on, and you’d remember, here, how as an . . . ape to nature, I excelled. The path the foul spirits kept clean, but it’s over. By all that’s ugly, it’s done.

Real Monasterio
, Gwyon wrote, his lips moving,
de Nuestra Señora de la Otra Vez
, as the whisper came closer, and broke out in a voice over his head,

—What’s this? Spain?

—Spain? Gwyon repeated. He dropped the crayon stub, looking up, and his large hand trembled over the newspaper clipping.

—Going to Spain?

—It doesn’t snow there, Gwyon said lowering his eyes, until they fixed on the little girl in long white stockings. —But the cold, on the hill where . . . He shuddered. —That land! he broke out. —Damned, empty land, you’re part of it when you’re there. Part of it, that self-continent land, and when you’re out, outside, shut out, and look back on it, you look back on its emptiness from your own, look over its ragged edges to its . . . its hard face, refuses to admit you’ve ever touched it. He was staring blankly at the newspaper clipping.

—But this isn’t . . . you can’t go now?

Gwyon looked him full in the face for the first time. —Spain is a land to flee across, he said, motionless, forcing the other face to lower in chagrin at the sight of his own undetermined features, as loss spread from his eyes out to the edges of his face, the emptiness in the eyepiece of a telescope where a point of light expands into a field of space and a worldless universe.

—She . . . They ejaculated at the same instant.

—She came to me there, Gwyon went on with somniloquent evenness, —in this monastery. I was almost asleep, and I felt her hand. I got up, I got to the window as fast as I could, and there, the moon had sent a stream of light in, across the room, right across the room to me. There it was in the sky. The moon . . . warm, like the moon . . .

—Yes but you can’t . . . I’m not a child any more! and you can’t . . . you used to tell me the Thessalonian witches tried to draw it down . . . Gwyon watched him vacantly as he turned away, abrupt movements round the far end of the table as though evading the image, or a mock image of the figure Gwyon had conjured. —And if it’s she standing over us . . . ?

—“The moon is always in motion,” says Arnobius.

—To hell with Arnobius.

—“According to your representation she is a woman, with a countenance that does not alter, though her daily variation carries
her through a thousand forms,” Gwyon finished, and his querulous voice failed.

—That . . . that, never mind all that! The words were harsh and uneven as he shook his head, shaking away the paraselene. —I came for you! he cried out at Gwyon.

—Yes . . . ? Gwyon whispered, his hands finding one another before him on the table, as his features reformed and his eyes recovered their glitter.

—If I’ve come for the priesthood, and you . . .

—Yes, you . . . You brought the bull, the gold bull, Reverend Gwyon said leaning forward.

—The what? Yes, that, but listen . . .

—And you’ve come for the priesthood, Gwyon went on tensely.

—Yes I’ve come back, I’ve come to you, because you can tell me . . . what I must know. He lowered his eyes, then raised them gleaming before Gwyon could interrupt again. —Though why you, better than someone else, because I . . . then I’ll be a minister, I’ll know what I’m doing . . . I’ll out-preach Saint Bernard. Mothers will hide their sons, wives will hide their husbands for fear my preaching will tempt them away. Yes, he broke up so many homes the deserted wives formed a nunnery. I’ll form seventy-two nunneries. Yes, “And the brother shall deliver up the brother unto death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death . . .” Why, I’ll go to Laodicea, and I . . . I’ll be God’s Fool Himself, he finished, swinging round to the windows again so abruptly that his hand cracked against the frame. He clutched it quickly in the other, then threw it out again. —Look! Look, the wren, do you see? he cried out.

A wren fluttered to an evergreen outside, its weight not enough to dislodge the snow on the spray where it landed.

—I’ll go out like the early Christian missionaries did at Christmas, to hunt down the wren and kill him, yes, when the wren was king, do you remember, you told me . . . When the wren was king, he repeated, getting breath again, —at Christmas.

The wren had flown, as he turned from the window and approached with burning green eyes fixed on Gwyon. —King, yes, he repeated, —when the king was slain and eaten, there’s sacrament. There’s sacrament. Then at the side of the table he paused and lowered his head, a closed wrist couched in the back of his neck, mumbling, —Homo . . . homoi . . . what I mean is, Did He really suffer? And . . . no, that’s not it, I mean . . . He stopped; and clinging to the edge, sank into his chair.

Reverend Gwyon sat high at the helm, steadying, hands stretched
forth to the edge of the sail of wrapping paper, looking down at him as though he were trying to clamber aboard. Then, —Are you prepared? Gwyon brought out, his eyes gleaming with the challenge.

—Prepared?

—The priesthood. The trials before you, for the priesthood.

—Trials?

—There must be priests, strong and passionless, able to renounce the things of this world . . . Gwyon reached out and took his wrist, as though to pull him aboard. —To preach Him Who offers rest from sin, and hope beyond the grave. Born of the Rock, He comes forth to offer Remission of sins, and Everlasting Life.

—Yes . . .

—Priests to administer Baptism, the Oath, and the Sign on the Brow, and the Communion of Bread and Cup. To preach Redemption, Sacramentary Grace, and Salvation, through the Lord of Hosts, the God of Truth who rewards for acts of piety . . .

—Yes, yes . . . Gwyon’s grip was tight as a closed vise on his wrist. It became tighter.

—To be his priest, are you prepared? Gwyon repeated. —To be inured to hardship? strengthened against temptation? and your body rendered passionless?

—But I . . . yes, good God, there’s no passion left in me now.

—To renounce the things of this world?

—There’s nothing here I want . . . Nothing.

—And when the crown is offered you . . . Gwyon came on, straining with intensity.

—Yes, the third temptation, “All these things will I give thee . . .” No, I’m through with that. He twisted in Gwyon’s grip. —He offered me all that, and he’s behind me. He gave me all that, and he’s behind me. Just being here I’ve renounced him, just coming here, I’ve renounced all he gave me. He paused, and when Gwyon did not speak but continued to grip his wrist and fix all his attention, as he had before, with his eye, went on, —Do you think he didn’t take me up on a high mountain, and show me all the kingdoms of the world? and the glory of them? and offer them to me? and give them to me? And here . . . now . . . if this is not Renunciation . . .

—Could you face fifty days of fasting? Gwyon demanded suddenly.

—Why . . . why yes, if . . .

—Could you stand two days exposed to extreme heat?

—But . . .

—And twenty days in the snow?

—But I . . .

—There are twelve trials of fortitude, Gwyon went on in a voice of intense confidence, —you must face heat and cold, hunger, thirst, and the terrors of drowning, before you take the sacramentum and be sealed on the forehead as his priest.

—But all this . . .

—You cannot be his priest without passing through all the disciplines, Gwyon said, relaxing his grip a little, speaking with an admonishing tone. —You must give proof of self-control and chastity, as Nonnus says in his
In Sancta Lumina
. To be rendered strong and passionless, in order to convert the army first, Gwyon went on, looking toward the window, his voice sinking to a reflective note.

—But Father . . . Father . . .

—Yes, Gwyon said closing his grip again, bringing his eyes back to the eyes which stared at him. —I have passed through all the grades, of course, to be the Pater Patrum. And then, he went on intent again, —after your death . . .

—My death? . . .

—After the cruciati you must die, of course, after the torments, when you have passed through all the disciplines, when you have attained Cryphius, and Miles, and Leo, and Perses, and Helio-dromus . . .

—Die? . . .

—How else may the soul be relieved of the dread necessity of its lower nature? Gwyon demanded bending toward him.

—Father! . . .

—Yes, at my hands, Gwyon said looking at him steadily, —you must die at the hands of the Pater Patratus, like all initiates.

Gwyon’s face was suffused with a flush which deepened as they sat locked rigidly hand and wrist together; and as it did the face that Gwyon looked into drained of all color until the skin was near translucent, so that it might have been not two processes but one continuous seepage of life. —No one can teach Resurrection without first suffering death himself. No one can be reborn without dying. No one can be Mithras’ priest without being reborn . . . to teach them to observe Sunday, and keep sacred the twenty-fifth of December as the birthday of the sun. Natalis invicti, the Unconquered Sun, Gwyon finished, turning his face to the window.

—But I . . . you . . . to worship the sun?

Gwyon let go his wrist abruptly, and he drew it back.

—Nonsense, said Gwyon, brisk now. —We let them think so, he confided, —those outside the mysteries. But our own votaries know Mithras as the deity superior to it, in fact the power behind the sun. Here, his name you see . . . Gwyon revealed the marginal
notes on the newspaper clipping. —Abraxas and Mithras have the same numerical value, the cycle of the year as the sun’s orbit describes it. Abraxas, you know, the resident of the highest Gnostic heaven . . .

The scuffling of feet sounded on the porch outside. Janet passed through the room hurriedly, behind them. Gwyon reached for his wrist again. It was not there, and Gwyon’s hand gripped the edge of the table. —“The gods are benevolent and regardful of the human race,” says Elisæus, Gwyon said almost in a whisper. —“If only men acknowledge the greatness of the gods and their own insignificance, and take pleasure in the gifts of the earth distributed by the hands of the king . . .”

Janet’s footsteps sounded in the front hall, and the door banged open, spilling voices into the house. Gwyon paused. His hand shook on the edge of the table, and his lip quivered. —Mithras means friend, he said, —mediator. Mithras is mediator between the gods and the lower world. He waited anxiously, as though for confirmation, as footsteps approached in the hall.

—Hell? the lower world, hell? came in distracted query.

—Our own earth, Reverend Gwyon answered, and was silent until Janet’s voice broke in upon them from the doorway, and he leaped up.

—It’s the Use-Me Ladies to see you, Reverend, said she.

Reverend Gwyon was through the doorway in the other direction before she’d finished her sentence, muttering —I’ll . . . be a minute, as he passed her. The study door banged, and from inside the sound of a book hurled to the floor a moment later.

Janet fled to the kitchen, as footsteps sounded straight down the front hall to the dining room. Three ladies came in. The cold came in with them; it clung round them as they came to a stop.

—Reverend . . .

—Reverend . . .

—I beg your pardon. We have come to see Reverend Gwyon.

—Oh, I . . . I . . . He just went out.

—Went out?

—Went out?

—But in this kind of weather he never goes out. Reverend Gwyon is always irritable when the sky clouds over and we have bad weather.

—No, I mean . . . just out of the room. He’ll be right back.

—I see.

—We’ll wait. And are you visiting here?

—I? Why, you might say . . .

—It may have surprised you, when we mistook you for Reverend Gwyon.

—But there is a re
sem
blance.

—There
is
a resemblance. Of course Reverend Gwyon is a good deal bigger.

—A good deal older. But as you’re dressed, you may see where we make our mistake. Are you in the Lord’s work?

—I? why I . . . Yes, I’m . . .

—I can’t see where I saw the resemblance.

—. . . the Reverend Gilbert Sullivan.

—But just for a minute . . .

—Just for a minute I saw it too. It may be that only this morning we were speaking of Reverend Gwyon’s son.