VIITHE VISION MALEFIC
“To be in Heaven the second, he disdains:So now the first in Hell and flames he reigns,Crown’d once with joy and light: crown’d now with fire and pains.”
—Phineas Fletcher(1582).
I am not a diabolist. I was an agnostic until ... I have read Huysmans and I do not believe he ever saw half he describes. Yet I, and in commonplace America, have seen things, have heard things, that would make mad the group of Parisian occultists. I dislike publicity, but Vance Thompson has asked me to relate the story, and so I mean to give it, names and all, with the faint hope that it may serve as a warning to callow astrologists, and all the younger generation affected by the writings of impious men who deny the existence of the devil.
More than twenty years ago I was the organist of a Roman Catholic church in the lower part of my city. I had studied the instrument in Germany and believed in Johann Sebastian Bach. I played and pedalled fugues on week-days for my own pleasure, and on Sundays executed with unction easy masses by Bordoni, Mercadante, and Haydn; my choir was not an ambitious one. The stipendium was small, thework light, and the two priests amiable enough. One, a German, Father Oelschlager, was the rector. His assistant was an Irishman with French blood in his veins. His name—shall I ever forget his name and face?—was Father Michael Moreau. He was crazy about music and occultism. The former he made no secret of; the latter I discovered only after a long acquaintance. Moreau came to the organ-loft when I practised on week-days, sang a little, and feasted much on Bach chorales. Urged often to visit his room, I did so, and he showed me rare black-letter missals, and later the backs of a number of old books whose titles I could not decipher. I am no Latinist, yet I knew these volumes were written neither in Latin nor Greek. The characters I had never seen before, and when I remarked their strangeness, Father Moreau smiled and even laughed as I quoted Poe: “the volumes of the Magi—in the iron-bound melancholy volumes of the Magi.”
Music led us to discuss religion, and my friend astonished me by his erudition. His sensitive features would become illuminated when he spoke of the strange tales of the Talmud. “Oh, my God!” he would cry with a patibulary gesture. “Why hast Thou not vouchsafed us more light?” And then would beg for Bach, and on the mighty stream of the D minor fugue his harassed mind seemed to float and find comfort. As time wore on he grew morbid, morose, reticent, and devoted himself to his dull duties with afanaticism that was almost harsh. The parishioners noticed it, and his reputation for saintliness increased. His confessional was always crowded and his sermons remarkable for the acerbity, the awful pictures he made of the sufferings of the damned and of the relentlessness of God’s wrath. His superior, good-natured Father Oelschlager, bade the other look at the cheerful side of the question, to believe more in God’s mellowness and sweetness, and would quote Cardinal Newman’s Lead Kindly Light, and certain comforting texts from the Scriptures, and then smoke his pipe. But the ascetic temperament of Moreau barred all attempts at palliation or attenuation of the God of Hosts, of the God who laid low the pride of Greece and Rome. Life to him was a cancer to be extirpated, and he confessed to me one night after rehearsal that he had almost doubted God’s existence and courted suicide after reading Renan’s Vie de Jésus. I suggested change of scene, less strenuous labors, above all, the world, music, and athletics. My advice availed not, and I saw that Father Moreau was fast becoming a monomaniac. His sermons during the hot summer were devoted to the personality of the devil, to his corporeal existence, to his daily presence in the marts of mankind; and so constant was his harping on this theme that Father Oelschlager had to forbid him the subject. “It is so warm, my son! Why, then, do you hold forth on hell? Let the poor people hear moreof the crystal rivers, the green meads of the New Jerusalem. It would be more seasonable.” Moreau frowned, but obeyed his superior.
With the autumn and winter his habits became more secretive, his visits to me less frequent, and his air of detachment most melancholy. Advent saw him a mere wraith of a man, worn by speculation, devoured by an interior flame, a flame that was wasting his very soul to despair. He seldom conversed with me, although I watched him anxiously and occasionally interrogated him regarding his health. At last I spoke to his associate, but encountered an easy-going philosophic spirit, which assured me Father Moreau was going through what most young priests should. He was at the period of unfaith, was nettled by doubt, and after he had wrestled with Satan, and won the good fight, he would again become normal. This seemed consoling though vague.
The day before Christmas I promised that I would not send a substitute to play the midnight mass at the church. Our church was the only one in the city where the old-fashioned mass at twelve o’clock on Christmas Eve was celebrated. It is located near the river, and my journey was a long one, for I lived up-town. I ate a six o’clock supper and went to bed, telling them to arouse me at a quarter before eleven. I wished to be fresh for the early service. By eleven I was out on the street, and took a car bound south. I reached the church in time,and soon the solemn high mass began. My choir had with elaborate care prepared Cherubini’s mass, and despite the poor organ, the extra chorus and much enthusiasm made some effect. The congregation was attentive, and Father Oelschlager delivered a short, happy sermon, urging his flock to rejoice at the birth of the Babe of Bethlehem, Jesus the Infant Christ, uncrucified, but newly born into a world of toil and sin for our redemption. At the consecration of the host the good rector’s beaming faith was most edifying. He was served by Father Moreau, a melancholy deacon, indeed. “Ite Missa Est” pronounced, the faithful dismissed, I was overjoyed at the release, for I was tired. The choir chatted about the service, the singing, and at last I was alone. I placed the music-books back in the tall Gothic cupboard, closed the manuals of my instrument, and put on my overcoat. It must have been half past one, perhaps quarter of two, and I relished the prospect of my arrival home, where a warm breakfast would be awaiting me, and then once more to bed, for I had to play the regular half past ten o’clock Christmas mass for the benefit of the sleepy ones, who loved their couch better than their Christ.
Father Moreau met me at the bottom of the choir-loft steps. He was dressed for the street, his eyes were blazing, and as he took my arm his fingers were vise-like. “Will you come with me?” he asked. I was startled. I explainedthat I would not have much rest, nor should he waste his sleeping time on the dismal, cold streets; besides, I was hungry. I feared that he was about to deluge me with more of his studies in the customs of the early Gnostics, and, to be quite frank, I was worn out and not in a receptive humor for such untoward cryptic wisdom. Any other time—“Will you come with me?” he reiterated, and the clutch on my arm became oppressive. “Where?” I asked, for I hated to affront a friend. “Will you come with me?”
By this time the church was quite empty, and I pushed out into the street. It was dark and snowing hard. We walked toward the street, and as we neared the corner I heard the lucky sound of a horse-car—there were no trolleys then. I excused myself, ran and caught the car; the priest, following, sat down beside me. I paid both fares, and as I had nothing to say we preserved a sad silence. The mean light, the deserted streets, the lonely car, and the muffled strokes of the horses’ hoofs on the snow chilled my soul. I looked sideways at Father Moreau. He was reading a big parchment-covered book, which I saw by the dim lamplight was entitled Le Satanisme, by Jules Bois. I was shocked. A priest fresh from the holy sacrifice of the mass devouring the blasphemies that I was sure were in the gruesome volume, alarmed my piety. Presently he saw me and shut its leaves. “There are curious things in it, my dear friend,” he muttered, and his voice camefrom across a waste of sorrow. “Curious things; but you are a believer, are you not?” he eagerly repeated. “I am,” I replied devoutly, and I crossed myself. He fairly jumped at me, his eyes wide open and full of devouring flames. “Will you come with me?” he almost screamed, and for the fourth time. “East Street,” called out the conductor, and rather than let my half-mad companion alone—he surely must have been mad—I left the car with him, the conductor gazing after us with cynical eyes. He evidently took us for belated revellers.
We walked slowly for ten minutes until we arrived in front of a sad-looking church, and then I stopped: “The place is not open yet; they do not have Christmas service until five o’clock.” For the last time my companion whispered, “Will you come with me?” and, pushing past me, struck three times on the big doors. A small postern gate opened at once and we entered the vaulted passageway. I trembled at the strangeness of the adventure, and held fast to Moreau, for it was pitch black, and while I heard soft footfalls beside me—the footfalls of an unknown man—I could not see my hand before my face. We must have traversed a long yard, for the wind blew freely about me; I heard it playing on the housetops like a balloon in distress. Yet it felt as if issuing from a sepulchre, and my heart went to my empty stomach. Even in my growing terror I craved for coffee; its aroma would have mademe stronger for this inhuman cruise. We went down eleven steps—I counted them—my conductors on either side of me. Dampness and malodors warned me of our proximity to some ancient cellarage, some forgotten catacombs, wherein Father Moreau expected to give me a sacerdotal surprise, a revival perhaps of an antique and early Christian ritual. I feebly applauded his intentions, but wished he had chosen some other time and that the surroundings had been less sinister.
At last we paused and descended another flight of steps—this time I didn’t number them, for the cold was intense, and it was with relief that we suddenly arrived in a dimly lighted and warm chapel. It was empty, devoid of pews, of chairs, of furnishings of any sort, except, at the upper end, a small votive altar. Before it swung a lamp of Byzantine workmanship, in which burned a solitary tongue of yellow flame. The lamp swayed rhythmically, and on the altar were two tall tapers, lighted and perfumed. And then my eyes rested on the spot where should have been the tabernacle, surmounted by the gold cross. Judge of my consternation when I saw, saw as distinctly as I see the pen which traces these letters, a huge bronze serpent, with overlapping, glistening, metallic scales. The eyes of this python were almost feminine, and their regard gentle, reproachful, and voluptuous. My knees bent beneath me and my face was wet with fright.
“You are a believer, then?” crooned a dull voice in my ear. It was Moreau. He had thrown off his outer wrap and stood in a black soutane. He was white with emotion and said in tenderest accents: “Listen; be my friend. Do not desert me at the crisis of my life. It is to be my first mass, my first three o’clock mass. My deacon is already at the altar. Be the solitary worshipper. It will be a low mass—remember, a low mass!” He spoke clearly, rapidly, sanely, and seeing that I had something more than a lunatic to deal with, I removed my overcoat and knelt down near the altar just as Father Moreau ascended its steps, his assistant holding the end of hisblackcanonicals. If it had not been for the apparition of the serpent, I might have fancied that I was assisting at the lonely, pious vigil of a parochial curate. But the eyes of the serpent devoured mine, and I had none for the two silhouetted figures that went through with febrile velocity the familiar motions of the mass. It was low mass, and from the introit to the preface the space was scarcely appreciable. I heard mumblings, and the air became chillier as the celebrants moved and bowed or extended arms; the air grew colder, denser, and tenser. It vibrated like the wires of a monstrous zither, and my temples throbbed as if in the midst of a magnetic storm. I felt that I was nearing a great catastrophe, that God had abandoned His universe to its wicked will, and that I must sob, or scream, or pray, or die,or be damned forever, or—the tap of the silvery little bell was as if a sweet summer air had swum over my agitated soul. It was the bell that announced the solemn moment when God became man, when the divine spirit, by the miracle of transubstantiation, became flesh and blood.
In an ecstasy of faith, of awe, I plunged on my face and adored and wept, and a mighty wind swept from the altar with strange moanings and lamentings, and the lights were extinguished; yet there was a luminous fog, that enfolded us, and in it I saw the great serpent, symbol of wisdom, symbol of eternity, rear spirally aloft, and beneath it—oh, beneath it!—was the Beatific Vision. In swelling nimbus of flame was a counterfeit Mother of God, and holding the hand of Him, of the Infant, Jesus, born but three hours, and—oh, the horror of it!—notmyChrist, notourChrist, not the Christ of the Christians, but an Antichrist from some fetid hell, sent to seduce us, curse us, destroy us! My eyes almost burst from their sockets, and the humming of hell’s loom roared about me as I met the gaze—of the Woman. And now her eyes were the serpent’s eyes, and on her head was the crown of hell and its multiple kingdoms. She was naked, and set against her breasts were sharp swords. She was Mater Malorum, and her breath sowed discord, lust, and cruel murder. I yearned to pronounce the name of the true Mother of God, to bid this blinding vision, thisdamnable vision, vanish, but my tongue was like wet twine and my sight blistered by the pageantry of Satan, of Satan and his Dam. And as I struggled the silvery little bell tapped once more, and in a fading perspective I saw the Madonna and the Child give me such a sweet, beseeching glance that my heart dissolved within me, and I cried aloud, my tongue snapping in the roof of my mouth:
“Mary, Mother of God, preserve us from the Devil and all his works!” A withering streak of light struck my eyeballs, and I glimpsed the serpent falling to earth with distended jaws, as two priestly figures reeled off the altar-steps, and in the brassy clangor of despair we fell, all three, and swooning blackness shut down upon us like smothering velvet.
It was still dark when solicitous hands lifted me to my feet: my coat was thrown about my shoulders, and I was hurried in shivering gloom to the street. The other one disappeared at the little postern gate, and, parting outside, with damp, hot hands, and face plastered with hideous passion, the mad priest said to me, in a cracked voice:
“You have seenmyGod, the only true God of hell—heaven and earth.”