THE PRINCESS’ confessor comes every Saturday morning at the same time. By then she is up and fully dressed and has knelt in prayer for two hours before the crucifix. She is well prepared for her confession.
She has nothing to confess, but not because she lies or dissimulates. On the contrary, she always speaks freely from the fullness of her heart. She has no conception of sin. She does not know that she has done anything wrong, except perhaps been a little violent with her handmaid when her coiffure was fumbled. She is like an unwritten page and the confessor bends smiling over her as though she were an unspotted virgin.
Her eyes are brilliant and candid after her prayers and her submersion in the world of the crucifix. The tortured little man on his toy cross has suffered for her sake, and all guilt, even the memory of it, has been erased from her soul. She feels strong and rejuvenated and at the same time in a mood of dreamy piety and self-communion which suits her serious unpainted face and simple black gown. She seats herself and writes to her lover, telling him how she feels, a gentle sisterly letter without mention of love or rendezvous. When she feels like this she cannot endure the slightest approach to frivolity. I have to take the letter to the lover.
There can be no doubt that she is profoundly religious. To her, religion is something essential, something absolutely real. She needs it and she uses it. It is part of her heart and soul.
Is the Prince religious too? That is more difficult to say. Of course he is, in his own way, for he is everything, everything is within his range-but can that be called religious? He likes to think that such a thing exists, he likes listening to talk about it, to eloquent and learned discussions about its world of ideas-but how could anything in humanity be alien to him? He likes triptychs and madonnas painted by famous artists, and fine handsome temples, particularly those he has built himself. I do not know if that is religion. It is quite possible. And as a prince he is of course as genuinely religious as she. He understands that the religious hunger of the people must be satisfied, and his door is always open for those who do so. Priests and all kinds of spiritual persons are familiars here. But is he, like her, religious in himself? That is something quite different, and I do not intend to give any opinion on it.
But again, there can be no doubt that she is deeply religious.
Perhaps, in their own way, they are both religious.
WHAT is religion? I have given much thought to it, but in vain.
I pondered it especially that time a few years ago when I was compelled to officiate as a bishop in full canonicals at the carnival and give holy communion to the dwarfs of the Mantua court whom their Prince had brought here for the festival. We met at a miniature sanctuary which had been set up in one of the castle halls, and around us sat all the sniggering guests: knights and nobles and young coxcombs in their absurd apparel. I raised the crucifix and all the dwarfs fell on their knees. “Here is your savior,” I declared in a sonorous voice, my eyes flaming with passion. “Here is the savior of all the dwarfs, himself a dwarf, who suffered under the great prince Pontius Pilate, and was nailed to his little toy cross for the joy and ease of all men.” I took the chalice and held it up to them. “This is his dwarf’s blood, in which all iniquities are cleansed and all dirty souls become as white as snow.” Then I took the host and showed it to them and ate and drank of both in their sight, as is the custom, while I expounded the holy mysteries. “I eat his body which was deformed like yours. It tastes as bitter as gall, for it is full of hatred. May you all eat of it. I drink his blood, and it burns like a fire which cannot be quenched. It is as though I drink my own.
“Savior of all the dwarfs, may thy fire consume the whole world!”
And I threw the wine out over those who sat there, staring in gloom and amazement at our somber communion feast.
I am no blasphemer. It was they who blasphemed, not I, but the Prince had me clapped in irons for several days. The little jest had been intended to amuse, but I had spoiled it all and the guests had been very upset, almost scared. There were no chains small enough so they had to be specially made, and the smith thought that it was a great deal of trouble for such a short sentence. But the Prince said that it might be as well to have them for another time. He let me go sooner than had been planned, and I rather think he punished me merely for the sake of the guests, for as soon as they had left I was released. During the time that followed, however, he looked at me rather askance and did not seem to want to be alone with me; it was almost as though he were somewhat afraid of me.
Of course the dwarfs understood nothing. They scuttled around like frightened hens and squeaked with their miserable castrato voices. I don’t know where they get those ridiculous voices; my own is rich and deep. But they are cowed and castrated to the depths of their souls, and most of them are buffoons who shame their race by their gross jests about their own bodies.
They are a contemptible clan. So that I need not see them, I have made the Prince sell all the dwarfs here, one after the other, until I am the only one at the court. I am glad they are gone and the dwarfs’ apartment is empty and deserted when I sit there at night with my meditations. I am glad that Jehoshaphat is gone too, so that I am quit of his crumpled old woman’s face and his piping voice. I am glad to be alone.
It is my fate that I hate my own people. My race is detestable to me.
But I hate myself too. I eat my own splenetic flesh. I drink my own poisoned blood. Every day I perform my solitary communion as the grim high priest of my people.
AFTER THIS incident which caused so much offense, the Princess began to behave in a rather peculiar way. On the morning of my liberation she called me in to her, and when I entered the bedchamber she looked at me in silence with a thoughtful searching gaze. I had expected reproaches, perhaps more punishment, but when at last she spoke she admitted that my communion service had made a deep impression on her, that there had been something dark and terrible about it which had appealed to something within her. How had I been able to penetrate to her secret depths like that and speak to them?
I did not understand. I seized the opportunity to sneer as she lay there in the bed gazing vaguely past me.
She asked what I thought it felt like to hang on a cross. To be scourged, tortured, to die? And she said that she realized Christ must hate her, that He must be full of hatred while suffering for her sake.
I did not bother to reply, nor did she continue the conversation, but lay staring into space with dreaming eyes.
Then she dismissed me with a gesture of her beautiful hand and called to her tirewoman to fetch her crimson gown because she was going to get up.
I still don’t understand what possessed her just then.
I HAVE noticed that sometimes I frighten people; what they really fear is themselves. They think it is I who scare them, but it is the dwarf within them, the ape-faced manlike being who sticks up its head from the depths of their souls. They are afraid because they do not know that they have another being inside them. They are scared when anything rises to the surface, from their inside, out of some of the cesspools in their souls, something which they do not recognize and which is not a part of their real life. When nothing is visible above the surface, they are utterly fearless. They go about, tall and unconcerned, with their smooth faces which express nothing at all. But inside them is always something else which they ignore and, without knowing it, they are constantly living many kinds of lives. They are so strangely secretive and incoherent.