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ETIKA A |
Robert Hugh Benson |
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92A6A3 |
Lord of the
World |
6.1.2008 |
The Story of the Coming Antichrist
Lord of the World by Robert
Hugh Benson.
BOOK I – THE ADVENT.
CHAPTER III – DIE ANKUNFT
I The
OLD Mrs. Brand and Mabel
were seated at a window of the new Admiralty Offices
in Trafalgar Square to see Oliver deliver his speech on the
fiftieth anniversary of the passing of the Poor Laws Reform.
It was an inspiriting sight,
this bright June morning, to see the crowds gathering round Braithwaite's statue. That politician,
dead fifteen years before, was represented in his famous attitude, with arms
outstretched and down dropped, his head up and one foot slightly advanced, and
to-day was decked, as was becoming more and more usual on such occasions, in
his Masonic insignia. It was he who had given immense impetus to that secret
movement by his declaration in the House that the key of future progress and
brotherhood of nations was in the hands of the Order.
It was through this alone
that the false unity of the Church with its fantastic spiritual fraternity
could be counteracted.
Old Mrs. Brand was in her best to-day,
and looked out with considerable excitement
at the huge throng gathered to hear her son speak. A platform was erected round
the bronze statue at such a height that the statesman appeared to be one of the
speakers, though at a slightly higher elevation, and this platform was hung
with roses, surmounted by a sounding-board, and set with a chair and table.
The whole square round about was paved with heads and resonant with
sound, the murmurs of thousands of voices, overpowered now and again by the
crash of brass and thunder of drums as the Benefit
Societies and democratic Guilds, each headed by a banner, deployed from
North, South, East and \Vest, and converged towards the wide railed space about
the platform where room was reserved for them. The windows on every side were
packed with faces; tall stands were erected along the front of the National Gallery and St. Martin's Church,
garden-beds of colour behind the mute, white statues that faced outwards round
the square, from Braithwaite in front, past the Victorians-John Davidson, John
Burns, and the rest-round to Hampden and de Montfort
towards the north. The old column was gone, with its lions. Nelson had not been found advantageous
to the Entente Cordiale, nor the lions to the new art; and in their place stretched a wide
pavement broken by slopes of steps that led up to the National Gallery.
Overhead the roofs showed crowded friezes of heads against the blue summer sky.
Not less than one hundred thousand persons, it was estimated in the evening
papers, were collected within sight and sound of the platform by noon.
As the clocks began to tell the hour, two figures from
behind the statue and came forward, and, in an instant, the murmurs of talk
rose into cheering.
Old
Lord Pemberton came first, a
grey-haired, upright man, whose father had been active in denouncing the House
of which he was a member on the occasion of its fall over seventy years ago,
and his son had succeeded him worthily. This man was now a member of the
Government, and sat for
There
was no doubt that these Londoners could sing. It was as if a giant voice hummed
the sonorous melody, rising to enthusiasm till the music of massed bands
followed it as a flag follows a flag-stick. The hymn was one composed ten years
before, and all
"The
Lord that dwells in earth and sea." ...
She glanced down the verses, that from the Humanitarian point of view had been
composed with both skill and ardour. They had a religious ring; the
unintelligent Christian could sing them without a qualm; yet their sense was
plain enough—the old human creed that man was all. Even Christ's words themselves were quoted. The
She
glanced at Mabel, and saw that the girl was singing with all her might, with
her eyes fixed on her husband's dark figure a hundred yards away, and her soul
pouring through them. So the mother, too, began to move her lips in chorus with
that vast volume of sound.
As the
hymn died away, and before the cheering could begin again, old Lord Pemberton
was standing forward on the edge of the platform, and his thin, metallic voice
piped a sentence or two across the tinkling splash of the fountains behind him.
Then he stepped back, and Oliver came forward.
It was too far for the two to hear what was said, but Mabel slipped a
paper, smiling tremulously, into the old lady's hand, and herself
bent forward to listen.
Old Mrs. Brand looked at that, too, knowing that it was an analysis of
her son's speech, and aware that she would not be able to hear his words.
There was an
exordium first, congratulating all who were present to do honour to the great
man who presided from his pedestal on the occasion of this great anniversary. Then
there came a retrospect, comparing the old state of
He
enumerated the reforms passed fifty years before on this very day, by which the
nation once and for all declared the glory
of poverty and man's sympathy with the unfortunate.
So he
had told them he was to sing the praise
of patient poverty and its reward, and that, he supposed, together with a
few periods on the reform of the prison
laws, would form the first half of his speech.
The
second part was to be a panegyric of Braithwaite, treating him as the Precursor
of a movement that even now had begun.
Old Mrs.
Brand leaned back in her seat, and looked about her.
The
window where they sat had been reserved for them; two arm-chairs filled the
space, but immediately, behind there were others, standing very silent now,
craning forward, watching, too, with parted lips: a couple of women with an old
man directly behind, and other faces visible again behind them. Their obvious
absorption made the old lady a little ashamed of her distraction, and she
turned resolutely once more to the square.
Ah! he was working up now to his panegyric! The tiny dark figure
was back, a yard nearer the statue, and as she looked, his hand went up and he
wheeled, pointing, as a murmur of applause drowned for an instant the minute,
resonant voice. Then again he was forward, half crouching—for he was a born actor—and a storm of laughter rippled
round the throng of heads. She heard an indrawn hiss behind her chair, and the
next instant an exclamation from Mabel. ... What was that?
There was a
sharp crack, and the tiny gesticulating
figure staggered back a step. The old man at the table was up in
a moment, and simultaneously a violent commotion bubbled and heaved like water
about a rock at a point in the crowd immediately outside the railed space where
the bands were massed, and directly opposite the front of the platform.
Mrs. Brand, bewildered and
dazed, found herself standing up, clutching the window rail, while the girl
gripped her, crying out something she could not understand. A great roaring
filled the square, the heads tossed this way and that,
like corn under a squall of wind. Then Oliver was forward again, pointing and
crying out, for she could see his gestures; and she sank back quickly, the
blood racing through her old veins, and her heart hammering at the base of her
throat.
"My dear, my dear, what
is it?" she sobbed.
But Mabel was up, too,
staring out at her husband; and a quick babble of talk and exclamations from
behind made itself audible in spite of the roaring tumult of the square.
II Wounded by a fanatic—the
sympathy of
Oliver told them the
explanation of the whole affair that evening at home, leaning back in his
chair, with one arm bandaged and in a sling.
They had not been able to get near
him at the time; the excitement in the square had been too fierce; but a messenger
had come to his wife with the news that her husband was only slightly wounded,
and was in the hands of the doctors.
"He was a Catholic," explained the
drawn-faced Oliver.
"He
must have come ready, for his repeater was found loaded. Well, there was no
chance for a priest this time."
Mabel
nodded slowly: she had read of the man's fate on the placards.
"He
was killed-trampled and strangled instantly," said Oliver. "I did
what I could: you saw me. But-well, I dare say it was more merciful."
"But
you did what you could, my dear?" said the old lady, anxiously, from her
corner.
"I
called out to them, mother, but they wouldn't hear me."
Mabel
leaned forward ——
"Oliver,
I know this sounds stupid of me; but—but I wish they had not killed
him."
Oliver
smiled at her. He knew this tender trait in her. "It would have been more
perfect if they had not," she said. Then she broke off and sat back.
"Why
did he shoot just then?" she asked.
Oliver
turned his eyes for an instant towards his mother, but she was knitting
tranquilly.
Then he
answered with a curious deliberateness.
"I said that Braithwaite had done more for
the world by one speech than Jesus and all His saints put together."
He was
aware that the knitting-needles stopped for a second; then they went on again
as before.
"But
he must have meant to do it anyhow," continued Oliver.
"How
do they know he was a Catholic?" asked the girl again.
"There
was a rosary on him; and then he just had time to call on his God."
"And
nothing more is known?"
"Nothing
more. He was well dressed, though."
Oliver leaned back a little
wearily and closed his eyes; his arm still throbbed intolerably. But he was very
happy at heart. It was true that he had been wounded by a fanatic, but he was not
sorry to bear pain in such a cause, and it was obvious that the sympathy of
Mr. Phillips even now was
busy in the next room, answering the telegrams that poured in every moment.
Caldecott, the Prime Minister, Maxwell, Snowford and
a dozen others had wired instantly their congratulations, and from every part
of
It was an immense stroke for the Communists; their spokesman had been assaulted
during the discharge of his duty, speaking in defence of his principles; it was
an incalculable gain for them, and loss for the
Individualists, that confessors were not all on one side after all. The huge
electric placards over
"Oliver
Brand wounded. . . . Catholic assailant. . . . Indignation of the country. . .
. Well-deserved fate of assassin.
"
He was pleased, too, that he honestly
had done his best to save the man.
Even in that moment of sudden and acute pain he had cried out for a fair trial;
but he had been too late. He had seen the starting eyes roll up in the crimson
face, and the horrid grin come and go as the hands had clutched and torn at his
throat. Then the face had vanished and a heavy
trampling began where it had disappeared.
Oh! there was some passion and loyalty left in
His
mother got up presently and went out, still without a word; and Mabel turned to
him, laying a hand on his knee.
"Are
you too tired to talk, my dear?" He opened his eyes.
"Of course not, my darling. What is it?"
"What do you think will be the effect?"
He
raised himself a little, looking out as usual through the darkening windows on
to that astonishing view. Everywhere now lights were glowing,
a sea of mellow moons just above the houses, and above the mysterious heavy
blue of a summer evening.
"The
effect?" he said. "It can be nothing but good. It was time that
something happened. My dear, I feel very downcast sometimes, as you know. Well,
I do not think I shall be again. I have been afraid sometimes that we were
losing all our spirit, and that the old Tories were partly right when they
prophesied what Communism would do. But after this——"
"Well?"
"Well;
we have shown that we can shed our blood too. It is in the nick of time, too,
just at the crisis. I don't want to exaggerate; it is only a scratch—but it was so deliberate, and—and so dramatic. The poor devil could not have chosen
a worse moment. People won't forget it."
Mabel's
eyes shone with pleasure.
"You
poor dear!" she said. "Are you in pain?"
"Not much. Besides, Christ! what do I care? If only this infernal Eastern affair would
end!"
He knew he was feverish and
irritable, and made a great effort to drive it down.
"Oh, my dear!" he
went on, flushed a little. "If they
would not be such heavy fools: they don't understand; they don't
understand."
"Yes,
Oliver?"
"They
don't understand what a glorious thing it all is: Humanity, Life, Truth at last, and the death
of Folly! But haven't I told them a hundred times?"
She looked at him with
kindling eyes. She loved to see him like this, his confident, flushed face, the
enthusiasm in his blue eyes; and the knowledge of his pain pricked her feeling
with passion. She bent forward and kissed him suddenly.
"My
dear, I am so proud of you. Oh, Oliver!"
He said nothing; but she
could see what she loved to see, that response to her own heart; and so they
sat in silence while the sky darkened yet more, and the click of the writer in
the next room told them that the world was alive and that they had a share in
its affairs.
Oliver
stirred presently.
"Did
you notice anything just now, sweetheart—when
I said that about Jesus Christ?"
"She stopped knitting
for a moment," said the girl.
He nodded.
"You saw that too, then.
. . . Mabel, do you think she is falling
back?"
"Oh! she is getting old,"
said the girl lightly. "Of course she looks back a little."
"But you don't think—it would be too awful!"
She shook her head.
"No,
no, my dear; you're excited and tired. It's just a little sentiment. . . .
Oliver, I don't think I would say that kind of thing before her."
"But she hears it everywhere now."
"No, she doesn't. Remember she hardly ever goes out.
Besides,
she hates it. After all, she was brought up a Catholic."
Oliver
nodded, and lay back again, looking dreamily out.
"Isn't it astonishing the way in which suggestion lasts? She
can't get it out of her head, even after fifty years. Well, watch her, won't
you? . . . By the way . . ."
"Yes?"
"There's
a little more news from the East.
They say Felsenburgh’s
running the whole thing now. The Empire
is sending him everywhere—Tobolsk, Benares,
Mabel sat up briskly.
"Isn't that very hopeful?"
"I
suppose so. There's no doubt that the Sufis
are winning; but for how long is another question. Besides, the troops don't
disperse."
"And
"
"Your arm, my dear?"
"My
arm must get well. It will have to go with me, anyhow."
"Tell me some more."
"There
is no more. But it is just as certain as it can be that this is the crisis. If the East can be persuaded to hold its
hand now, it will never be likely to raise it again. It will mean free trade all over the world, I suppose, and all
that kind of thing. But if not——"
"Well?"
"If not, there will be a catastrophe such as
never has been even imagined. The whole human race will be at war, and either
East or West will be simply wiped out. These new Benninschein
explosives will make certain of that."
"But
is it absolutely certain that the East has got them?" "Absolutely.
Benninschein sold them simultaneously to East and West;
then he died, luckily for him."
Mabel
had heard this kind of talk before, but her imagination simply refused to grasp
it. A duel of East and West under these new conditions was an unthinkable
thing. There had been no European war
within living memory,
and the Eastern wars of the last century had been under the old conditions.
Now, if tales were true, entire towns
would be destroyed with a single shell. The new conditions were
unimaginable. Military experts prophesied extravagantly, contradicting one
another on vital points; the whole procedure of war was a matter of theory;
there were no precedents with which to compare it. It was as if archers
disputed as to the results of cordite. Only one thing was certain—that the East had every modern
engine, and, as regards male population, half as much again as the rest of the
world put together; and the conclusion to be drawn from these premisses was not reassuring to
But
imagination simply refused to speak. The daily papers had a short, careful
leading article every day, founded upon the scraps of news that stole out from
the conferences on the other side of the world; Felsenburgh's name appeared more frequently than ever: otherwise there seemed to be a kind of
hush.
Nothing
suffered very much; trade went on; European stocks were not appreciably lower
than usual; men still built houses,
married wives, begat sons and daughters, did their business and went to the
theatre, for the mere reason that there was no good in anything else. They
could neither save nor precipitate the situation; it was on too large a scale.
Occasionally people went mad—people who had succeeded in goading their imagination to a height whence
a glimpse of reality could be obtained; and there was a diffused atmosphere of
tenseness. But that was all. Not many speeches were made on the subject; it had
been found inadvisable. After all, there was nothing to do but to wait.
III Ill
Mabel remembered
her husband's advice to watch, and for a few days did her best. But there was
nothing that alarmed her. The old lady was a little quiet, perhaps, but went
about her minute affairs as usual. She asked the girl to read to her sometimes,
and listened unblenching to whatever was offered her;
she attended in the kitchen daily, organised varieties of food, and appeared
interested in all that concerned her son. She packed his bag with her own
hands, set out his furs for the swift flight to
It was on the
evening of the second day that she fell
ill; and Mabel, running upstairs, in alarm at the message of the servant,
found her rather flushed and agitated in her chair.
"It is nothing, my dear," said the old lady tremulously; and
she added the description of a symptom or two.
Mabel got her to bed, sent for the doctor, and sat down to wait.
She was
sincerely fond of the old lady, and had always found her presence in the house
a quiet sort of delight. The effect of her upon the mind was as that of an
easy-chair upon the body. The old lady was so tranquil and human, so absorbed
in small external matters, so reminiscent now and then of the days of her
youth, so utterly without resentment or peevishness.
It
seemed curiously pathetic to the girl to watch that quiet old spirit approach
its extinction, or rather, as Mabel believed, its loss of personality in the reabsorption into
the Spirit of Life which informed the world. She found less difficulty in contemplating
the end of a vigorous soul, for in that case she imagined a kind of energetic
rush of force back into the origin of things; but in this peaceful old lady
there was so little energy; her whole point, so to speak, lay in the delicate
little fabric of personality, built out of fragile things into an entity far
more significant than the sum of its component parts: the death of a flower,
reflected Mabel, is sadder than the death of a lion; the breaking of a piece of
china more irreparable than the ruin of a palace.
"It is syncope," said the doctor when he came in. "She may die at any time; she may live
ten years."
"There is
no need to telegraph for Mr. Brand?"
He made a little
deprecating movement with his hands.
"It is not
certain that she will die—it is not imminent?" she asked.
"No,
no; she may live ten years, I said."
He added
a word or two of advice as to the use of the oxygen injector, and went away.
The old
lady was lying quietly in bed, when the girl went up, and put out a wrinkled
hand.
"Well,
my dear?" she asked.
"It
is just a little weakness, mother. You must lie quiet and do nothing. Shall I
read to you?"
"No,
my dear; I will think a little."
It was
no part of Mabel's idea to duty to tell her that she was in danger, for there
was no past to set straight, no Judge to be confronted. Death was an ending,
not a beginning. It was a peaceful Gospel; at least, it became peaceful as soon
as the end had come.
So the
girl went downstairs once more, with a quiet little ache at her heart that
refused to be still.
What a strange
and beautiful thing death was, she told herself—this resolution of a chord that
had hung suspended for thirty, fifty or seventy years—back again into the
stillness of the huge Instrument that was all in all to itself. Those same
notes would be struck again, were being struck again even now all over the
world, though with an infinite delicacy of difference in the touch; but that particular
emotion was gone: it was foolish to think that it was sounding eternally
elsewhere, for there was no elsewhere. She, too, herself would cease one day,
let her see to it that the tone was pure and lovely.
Mr. Phillips arrived the next morning
as usual, just as Mabel had left the old lady's room, and asked news of her.
"She
is a little better, I think," said Mabel. "She must be very quiet all
day."
The
secretary bowed and turned aside into Oliver's room, where a heap of letters
lay to be answered.
A couple of hours later, as
Mabel went upstairs once more, she met Mr. Phillips
coming down. He looked a little flushed under his sallow skin.
"Mrs.
Brand sent for me," he said. "She wished to know whether Mr. Oliver
would be back to-night."
"He will, will he not?
You have not heard?"
"Mr. Brand said he
would be here for a late dinner. He will reach
"And
is there any other news?"
He
compressed his lips.
"There
are rumours," he said. "Mr. Brand wired to me an hour ago."
He seemed moved at
something, and Mabel looked at him in astonishment.
"It is not Eastern
news?" she asked. His eyebrows wrinkled a little.
"You
must forgive me, Mrs. Brand," he said. "I am not at liberty to say anything."
She was not offended, for
she trusted her husband too well; but she went on into the sick-room with her
heart beating.
The old lady, too, seemed
excited. She lay in bed with a clear flush in her white cheeks, and hardly
smiled at all to the girl's greeting.
"Well, you have seen Mr.
Phillips, then?" said Mabel.
Old Mrs. Brand
looked at her sharply an instant, but said nothing.
"Don't
excite yourself, mother. Oliver will be back to-night."
The old lady drew a long breath.
"Don't
trouble about me, my dear," she said. "I shall do very well now. He
will be back to dinner, will he not?"
"If the volor is not
late. Now, mother, are you ready for breakfast ?"
Mabel
passed an afternoon of considerable agitation. It was certain that something
had happened. The secretary, who breakfasted with her in the parlour looking on
to the garden, had appeared strangely excited. He had told her that he would be
away the rest of the day: Mr. Oliver had given him his instructions. He had
refrained from all discussion of the Eastern question, and he had given her no
news of the Paris Convention; he only repeated that Mr. Oliver would be back
that night. Then he had gone off in a hurry half-an-hour later.
The old
lady seemed asleep when the girl went up afterwards, and Mabel did not like to
disturb her. Neither did she like to leave the house; so she walked by herself
in the garden, thinking and hoping and fearing, till the long shadow lay across
the path, and the tumbled platform of roofs was bathed in a dusty green haze
from the west.
As she
came in she took up the evening paper, but there was no news there except to
the effect that the Convention would close that afternoon.
Twenty o'clock came, but there was no sign of Oliver.
The Paris volor should have arrived an hour before, but Mabel,
staring out into the darkening heavens had seen the stars come out like jewels
one by one, but no slender winged fish pass overhead. Of course she might have
missed it; there was no depending on its exact course; but she had seen it a
hundred times before, and wondered unreasonably why she had not seen it now.
But she would not sit down to dinner, and paced up and down in her white dress,
turning again and again to the window, listening to the soft rush of the
trains, the faint hoots from the track, and the musical chords from the
junction a mile away. The lights were up by now, and the vast sweep of the
towns looked like fairyland between the earthly light and the heavenly darkness.
Why did not Oliver come, or at least let her know why he did not?
Once she went upstairs,
miserably anxious herself, to reassure the old lady, and found her again very
drowsy.
"He is not come,"
she said. "I dare say he may be kept in
The old face on the pillow
nodded and murmured, and Mabel went down again. It was now an hour after dinnertime.
Oh! there
were a hundred things that might have kept him.
He had
often been later than this: he might have missed the volor
he meant to catch; the Convention might have been prolonged; he might be
exhausted, and think it better to sleep in
She went at last, hopelessly, to the
telephone, and looked at it. There it was, that round
silent mouth, that little row of labelled
buttons. She half decided to touch them one by one, and inquire whether
anything had been heard of her husband: there was his club, his office in '
Then,
even as she turned away, the bell rang sharply, and a white label flashed into
sight. —
She
pressed the corresponding button, and, her hand shaking so much that she could
scarcely hold the receiver to her ear, she listened.
"Who is there?"
Her
heart leaped at the sound of her husband's Voice, tiny and minute across the
miles of wire.
"I—Mabel," she said. "Alone here."
"Oh!
Mabel. Very well. I am back: all is well. Now listen.
Can you hear?"
"Yes, yes."
"The
best has happened. It is all over in the
East. Felsenburgh has done it. Now listen. I
cannot come home to-night. It will be announced in
Paul's House in two hours from now. We are communicating with the Press. Come
up here to me at once. You must be present. . . . Can you hear?"
"Oh, yes."
"Come
then at once. It will be the greatest
thing in history. Tell no one. Come before the rush begins. In
half-an-hour the way will be
stopped."
"Oliver. "
"Yes? Quick."
"Mother is ill. Shall I
leave her?"
"How
ill?"
"Oh,
no immediate danger. The doctor has seen her."
There was
silence for a moment.
"Yes;
come then. We will go back to-night anyhow, then. Tell her we shall be
late."
"Very
well."
" . .
. Yes, you must come. Felsenburgh will be there."