The Irrational Knot Part 38

"Oh, how rough you are!" she exclaimed in her softest voice, adroitly tumbling into the seat as if he had thrown her down, and clinging to his arms; so that it was as much as he could do to keep his feet as he stooped over her, striving to get upright. At which supreme moment the door was opened by Marmaduke, who halted on the threshold to survey the two reproachfully for a moment. Then he said:

"George: I'm astonished at you. I have not much opinion of parsons as a rule; but I really did think that _you_ were to be depended on."

"Marmaduke," said the clergyman, colouring furiously, and almost beside himself with shame and anger: "you know perfectly well that I am actuated in coming here by no motive unworthy of my profession. You misunderstand what you have seen. I will not hear my calling made a jest of."

"Quite right, Doctor," said Susanna, giving him a gentle pat of encouragement on the shoulder. "Defend the cloth, always. I was only asking him to stay to lunch, Bob. Cant you persuade him?"

"Do, old fellow," said Marmaduke. "Come! you must: I havnt had a chat with you for ever so long. I'm really awfully sorry I interrupted you.

What on earth did you make Susanna rig herself out like that for?"

"Hold your tongue, Bob. Mr. George has nothing to do with my being in character. This is what came last night in the box: I could not resist trying it on this morning. I am Zobeida, the light of the harem, if you please. I must have your opinion of the rouge song, Doctor. Observe.

This is a powder puff: I suppose you never saw such a thing before. I am making up my face for a visit of the Sultan; and I am apologizing to the audience for using cosmetics. The original French is improper; so I will give you the English version, by the celebrated Robinson, the cleverest adapter of the day:

'Poor odalisques in captive thrall Must never let their charms pall: If they get the sack They ne'er come back; For the Bosphorus is the boss for all In this harem, harem, harem, harem, harum scarum place.'

Intellectual, isnt it?"

Susanna, whilst singing, executed a fantastic slow dance, stopping at certain points to clink a pair of little cymbals attached to her ankles, and to look for a moment archly at the clergyman.

"No," he said, hurt and offended into a sincerity of manner which compelled them to respect him for the first time, "I will not stay; and I am very sorry I came." And he left the room, his cheeks tingling.

Marmaduke followed him to the gate. "Come and look us up soon again, old fellow," he said.

"Marmaduke," said the clergyman: "you are travelling as fast as you can along the road to h.e.l.l."

As he hurried away, Marmaduke leaned against the gate and made the villas opposite echo his laughter.

"On my soul, it's a shame," said he, when he returned to the house.

"Poor old George!"

"He found no worse than he had made up his mind to find," said Susanna.

"What right has he to come into my house and take it for granted, to my face, that I am a disgrace to his sister? One would think I was a common woman from the streets."

"Pshaw! What does he know? He is only a molly-coddling parson, poor fellow. He will give them a rare account of you when he goes back."

"Let him," said Susanna. "He can tell them how little I care for their opinion, anyhow."

The Rev. George took the next train to the City, and went to the offices of the Electro-Motor Company, where he found his father. They retired together to the board-room, which was unoccupied just then.

"I have been to that woman," said the clergyman.

"Well, what does she say?"

"She is an entirely abandoned person. She glories in her shame. I have never before met with such an example of complete and unconscious depravity. Yet she is not unattractive. There is a wonderfully clever refinement even in her coa.r.s.eness which goes far to account for her influence over Marmaduke."

"No doubt; but apart from her personal charms, about which I am not curious, is she willing to a.s.sist us?"

"No. I could make no impression on her at all."

"Well, it cannot be helped. Did you say anything about Conolly's selling his interest here and leaving the country?"

"No," said the clergyman, struck with a sense of remissness. "I forgot that. The fact is, I hardly had the oppor----"

"Never mind. It is just as well that you did not: it might have made mischief."

"I do not think it is of the least use to pursue her with any further overtures. Besides, I really could not undertake to conduct them."

"May I ask," said Mr. Lind, turning on him suddenly, "what objection you have to Marian's wishes being consulted in this matter?"

The Rev. George recoiled, speechless.

"I certainly think," said Mr. Lind, more smoothly, "that Marian might have trusted to my indulgence instead of hurrying away to a lodging and writing the news in all directions. But I must say I have received some very nice letters about it. Jasper is quite congratulatory. The _Court Journal_ has a paragraph this week alluding to it with quite good taste.

Conolly is a very remarkable man; and, as the _Court Journal_ truly enough remarks, he has won a high place in the republic of art and science. As a Liberal, I cannot say that I disapprove of Marian's choice; and I really think that it will be looked on in society as an interesting one."

Mr. Lind's son eyed him dubiously for quite a long time. Then he said, slowly, "Am I to understand that I may now speak of the marriage as a recognized thing?"

"Why not, pray?"

"Of course, since you wish it, and it cannot be helped--" The clergyman again looked at his father, still more dubiously. He saw in his eye that there would be a quarrel if the interview lasted much longer. So he said "I must go home now. I have to write my sermon for next Sunday."

"Very good. Do not let me detain you. Good-bye."

The Rev. George returned to his rooms quite dazed by the novelty of his sensations. He had always respected his father beyond other men; and now he knew that his father did not deserve his respect in the least. That was one conviction uprooted. And Susanna had done something to him--he did not exactly know what; but he felt altogether a different man from the clergyman of the day before. He had come face to face with what he called Vice for the first time, and found it not at all what he had supposed it to be. He had believed that he knew it to be most dangerously attractive to the physical, but utterly repugnant to the moral sense; and such fascination he was prepared to resist to the utmost. But he was attacked in just the opposite way, and thereby so thrown off his guard that he did not know he was attacked at all; so that he told himself vaingloriously that the shafts of the enemy had fallen harmlessly from his breastplate of faith. For he was not in the least charmed by Susanna's person. He had detected the paint on her cheeks, and had noted with aversion a certain unhealthy bloat in her face, and an alcoholic taint in her breath. He exulted in the consciousness that he had been genuinely disgusted, not as a matter of duty, but unaffectedly, as a matter of simple nature. What interested him in her was her novel and bold moral att.i.tude, her self-respect in the midst of her sin, her striking arguments in favor of an apparently indefensible course of life. Hers was no common case of loose living, he felt: there was a soul to be saved there, if only Heaven would raise her up a friend in some man absolutely proof against the vulgar fascination of her prettiness. He began to imagine a certain greatness of character about her, a capacity for heroic repentance as well as for heroic sin.

Before long he was amusing himself by thinking how it might have gone with her if she had him for her counsellor instead of a gross and thoughtless rake like Marmaduke.

It is not necessary to follow the wild goose chase which the Rev.

George's imagination ran from this starting-point to the moment when he was suddenly awakened, by an unmistakable symptom, to the fact that he was being outwitted and beglamoured, like the utter novice he was, by a power which he believed to be the devil. He rushed to the little oratory he had arranged with a screen in the corner of his sitting-room, and prayed aloud, long and earnestly. But the hypnotizing process did not tranquilize him as usual. It excited him, and led him finally to a pa.s.sionate appeal for pardon and intercession to a statuet of the Virgin Mother, of whom he was a very devout adorer. He had always regarded himself as her especial champion in the Church of England; and now he had been faithless to her, and indelicate into the bargain. And yet, in spite of his contrition, he felt that he was having a tremendous spiritual experience, which he would not for worlds have missed. The climax of it was the composition of his Sunday sermon, the labor of which secured him a sound sleep that night. It was duly delivered on the following Sunday morning in this form:

"Dearly beloved Brethren: In the twenty-third verse of the third chapter of St. Mark's gospel, we find this question: '_How can Satan cast out Satan_?' How can Satan cast out Satan? If you will read what follows, you will perceive that that question was not answered. My brethren, it is unanswerable: it never has been, and it never can be answered.

"In these latter days, when the power of Satan has become so vast, when his empire and throne tower in our midst so that the faithful are cast down by the exceeding great shadow thereof, and when temples innumerable are open for his worship, it is no strange thing that many faint-hearted ones should give half their hearts to Beelzebub, and should hope by the prince of devils to cast out devils. Yes, this is what is taking place daily around us. Oh, you, who seek to excuse this book to infidel philosophers by shewing with how much facility a glib tongue may reconcile it with their so-called science, I tell you that it is science and not the Bible that shall need that apology in the great day of wrath. And, therefore, I would have you, my brethren, earnestly discountenance all endeavors to justify the Word of G.o.d by explaining it in conformity with the imaginations of the men of science. How can Satan cast out Satan? He cannot; but he can lead you into the sin of adding to and of taking from the words of this book. He can add plagues unto you, and take away your part out of the holy city.

"In this great London which we inhabit we are come upon evil day's. The rage of the blasphemer, the laugh at the scoffer, the heartless lip-service of the worldling, and the light dalliance of the daughters of music, are offered every hour upon a thousand Baal-altars within this very parish. I would ask some of you who spend your evenings in the playhouses which multiply around us like weeds sown in the rank soil of human frailty, what justification you make to yourselves when you are alone in the watches of the night, and your conscience saith, '_What went ye out for to see_?' You will then complain of the bitterness of life, and prate of the refining influences of music; of the help to spiritual-mindedness given by the exhibition on the public stage of mockeries of G.o.d's world, wherein some pitiful temporal triumph of simulated virtue in the last act is the apology for the vicious trifling that has gone before. And in whom do you there see typified that virtue which you should shield in your hearts from the contamination of the theatre? Is it not in some woman whose private life is the scandalous matter of your whispered conversations, and whose shameless face smirks at you from the windows of those picture-shops which are a disgrace to our national morality? Is it from such as she that you will learn to be spiritual-minded? Does she appear before your carnal crowds repentant, her forehead covered with ashes, her limbs covered with sackcloth? No!

Her brow is glowing with unquenchable fire to kindle the fuel that the devil has hidden in your hearts. Her raiment is cloth of gold; and she is not covered with it. Naked and unashamed, she smiles and weeps in mockery of the virtue which you would persuade yourselves that she represents to you. Will you learn spiritual-mindedness from the sight of her eyes, from the sound of her mouth, from the measure of her steps, or from the music and the dancing that cease not within the doors of her temple? How can Satan cast out Satan? Whom think ye to deceive by whitening the sepulchre? Is it yourselves? The devil has blinded you already. Is it G.o.d? Who shall hide anything from Him? I tell you that he who makes the pursuit of virtue a luxury, and takes refuge from sin, not before the altar, but in the playhouse, is casting out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils.

"As I look about me in this church; I see many things intended to give pleasure to the carnal eye. Were the cost of all these dainty robes, this delicate headgear, these clouds of silk, of satin, of lace, and of sparkling jewels, were the price of these things brought into the Church's treasury, how loudly might the Gospel resound in lands between whose torrid sh.o.r.es and the tropical sun the holy shade of Calvary has not yet fallen! But, you will say, it is a good thing to be comely in the house of the Lord. The sight of what is beautiful elevates the mind.

Uncleanness is a vice. This, then, is how you will war with uncleanness.

Not by prayer and holy living. Not by pouring of your superfluity into the lap of the poor, and entering by the strait gate upon the narrow path in a garment without seam. No. By the dead and d.a.m.ning gold; by the purple and by the scarlet; by the brightness of the eyes that is born of new wine; by the mincing gait and the gloved fingers; and by the musk and civet instead of the myrrh and frankincense: by these things are you fain to purge your uncleanness. And will they suffice? Can Satan cast out Satan? Beware! '_For though thou wash thee with nitre and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord G.o.d_.' There shall come a day when your lace and feathers shall hang on you as heavy as your chains of gold, to drag you down to him in whose name you have thought to cast out devils. Do not think that these things are harmless vanities. Nothing can fill the human heart and be harmless.

If your thoughts be not of G.o.d, they will keep your minds distraught from His grace as effectually as the blackest broodings of crime. '_Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me days without number, saith the Lord G.o.d_.' Yes, your minds are too puny to entertain the full worship of G.o.d: do you think they are s.p.a.cious enough to harbor the worship of Baal side by side with it? Much less dare you pretend that the Baal altar is erected for the honor of G.o.d, that you may come into His presence comely and clean. It is but a few days since I stood in the presence of a woman who boasted to me that she bore upon her the value of two hundred pounds of our money. I cared little for the value of money that was upon her. But what shall be said of the weight of sin her attire represented? For, those costly garments were the wages of sin--of hardened, shameless, d.a.m.nable sin. Yet there is not before me a finer dress or a fairer face. Will you, my sisters, trust to the comeliness of visage and splendor of raiment in which such a woman as this can outshine you? Will you continue to cast out your devils by Beelzebub, the prince of devils? Be advised whilst there is yet time. Ask yourself again and again, how can Satan cast out Satan?

"When sin is committed in a great city for wages, is there no fault on the side of those who pay the wages? There is more than fault: there is crime. I trust there are few among you who have done such crime. But I know full well that it may be said of London to-day '_Thou art full of stirs, a joyous city: thy slain men are not slain with the sword, nor dead in battle_.' No. Our young men are slain by the poison of Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. Nor is the crafty old subterfuge lacking here. There are lost ones in this town who say, 'It is by our means that virtue is preserved to the rich: it is we who appease the wicked rage which would otherwise wreck society.' There are men who boast that they have brought their sins only to the houses of shame, and that they have respected purity in the midst of their foulness. 'Such things must be,' they say: 'let us alone, lest a worse thing ensue.'

When they are filled full with sin, they cry 'Lo! our appet.i.te has gone from us and we are clean.' They are willing to slake l.u.s.t with satiety, but not to combat it with prayer. They tread one woman into the mire, and excuse themselves because the garment of her sister is spotless. How vain is this lying homage to virtue! How can Satan cast out Satan?

"Oh, my brethren, this hypocrisy is the curse and danger of our age. The Atheist, no longer an execration, an astonishment, a curse, and a reproach, poses now as the friend of man and the champion of right.

Those who incur the last and most terrible curse in this book, do so in the name of that truth for which they profess to be seeking. Art, profanely veiling its voluptuous nakedness with the attributes of religion, disguises folly so subtly that it seems like virtue in the slothful eyes of those who neglect continually to watch and pray. The vain woman puts on her ornaments to do honor to her Creator's handiwork: the l.u.s.tful man casts away his soul that society may be kept clean: there is not left in these latter days a sin that does not pretend to work the world's salvation, nor a man who flatters not himself that the sin of one may be the purging of many. To such I say, Look to your own soul: of no other shall any account be demanded of you. A day shall come in which a fire shall be kindled among your G.o.ds. The Lord shall array Himself with this land as a shepherd putteth on his garment. Be sure that then if ye shall say 'I am a devil; but I have cast out many devils,' He will reply unto you, How can Satan cast out Satan? Who shall prompt you to an answer to that question? Nay, though in His boundless mercy He give you a thousand years to search, and spread before you all the books of science and sociology in which you were wont to find excuses for sin, what will it avail you? Will a scoff, or a quibble over a doubtful pa.s.sage, serve your turn? No. You cannot scoff whilst your tongue cleaves to the roof of your mouth for fear, and there will be no pa.s.sage doubtful in all the Scriptures on that day; for the light of the Lord's countenance will be over all things."

BOOK III