Ah, but here again, madame must not reason so carelessly, nor be misled by specious first appearances. Let us, instead, be logical! The child, knowing nothing, would not know what it was escaping: and it would not be grateful, it would derive no aesthetic pleasure from the impressive ceremony of giving by the old ritual, it would even resent the moment’s physical pain. But the beholders of the deed, and all that heard of it, would be acutely uncomfortable, since the father that secured for his child immunity from trouble and annoyance, did harm and worked great mischief by setting an example which aroused people to those frenzies evocable by no other prodigy than a display of common-sense.
For people would turn from this proof of paternal affection, to the world from which the child was being removed: and people would be unhappy, because, with all their natural human propensity for fault-finding tugging them toward denunciation, nobody would be able to deny the common-sense of rescuing a child from discomforts and calamities. What professional perjurer anywhere, madame, whether in prison or politics or the pulpit, could muster the effrontery to declare life other than a long series of discomforts diversified only by disasters ? What dignity was possible in an arena we entered in the manner of urine and left in the shape of ordure? What father endowed with any real religious faith could, after the most cursory glancing over of the sufferings he had got gratis in this life and had laboriously earned in the next,—could then appraise without conscience-stricken remorse the dilemma in which he had placed his offspring?
Well, to see thus revealed the one sure way of rescuing the child from this disastrous position, and to know himself too much a poltroon to follow the example of which his judgment and all his better instincts approved, was a situation that, madame, must make every considerate parent actually and deeply miserable, through self-contempt. In one manner alone might every man be made really miserable,—by preventing him from admiring himself any longer.
For people would look, too, toward the nearest police officer and toward the cowardice in their own hearts: and these commingled considerations would prevent many fathers from doing their plain duty. They would send many and it might be the hapless majority of fathers to bed that night with clean hands, with the pallid hands of self-convicted dastards: and self-contempt would make these fathers always unhappy. No, here again, madame might depend upon it that to assist a gentleman in this giving, by the old ritual, of his offspring was not, in the long run, and whatever the deed might seem to a first glance, philanthropy. It did some good: one could not deny that: but, after all, the child was absolutely the only person who profited, and through the benefits conferred upon the child was furthered the greatest ill and discomfort for the greatest number, who, here as in every other case, replied to any display of common-sense with frenzies that did harm and everywhither splutteringly worked mischief.
And you spoke with such earnestness, and so much logic, that in the end the vaguely golden Queen of Antan smiled through the gray mist, and said that you reminded her of her own children. You were enamored of words, you delighted in any nonsense which was sonorous. You were like all her children, she told you, the children whom, in spite of herself, she pitied. Here Freydis sighed.
Pity has kindred, you stated. Freydis leaned back among the gray cushions of her couch, so as to listen in perfect ease, and bade you explain that saying.
And as you sat down beside her, Puysange arose to the occasion. Here was familiar ground at last, the ground on which Puysange thrust forward with most firmness. And you reflected that it would be inappropriate to lament, just now, that not even in Antan did a rigidity of logic seem to get for anyone the victory which you foresaw to be secured by your other gifts. …
When Florian left Antan, the needed sword swung at his thigh.
18. Problems of Holiness
THUS it was not until Handsel Monday that Florian took the serious step which led from the realm in which Queen Freydis ruled, to the world of every day: and Florian found there, standing on the asherah stone upon which Janicot had received homage, no other person than Holy Hoprig.
“So I catch you creeping out of Antan,” observed the saint, and his halo glittered rather sternly. “I shall not pry into your actions there, because Antan is not a part of this world, and it is only your doings in this world which more or less involve my heavenly credit. Upon account of that annoying tie I now admonish you. For now we enter a new year, and this is the appropriate season for making good resolutions. It would be wise for you to make a great many of them, my son, for I warn you that I am a resolute spiritual father, and do not intend to put up with any wickedness now that you return to the world of men.”
This was to Florian a depressing moment. He had been to a deal of trouble to get the sword Flamberge, upon whose powers depended his whole future. And the instant he had it, here in his path was a far stronger power, with notions which bid fair to play the very devil with Florian’s plans. Now one could only try what might be done with logic and politeness.
“Your interest in my career, Monsieur Hoprig, affects me more deeply than I can well express; and I shall treasure your words. Still, Monsieur Hoprig, in view of your own past, and in view of all your abominable misdeeds as a priest of heathenry, one might anticipate a little broad-mindedness—”
“My past is quite good enough for any saint in eternity, and so, my son, ought not to be sneered at by any whippersnapper of a sorcerer—”
“Putting aside your delusion as to my necromantic accomplishments, I had always supposed, monsieur, that the living of a saint would be distinguished by meritorious actions, by actions worthy of our emulation. And so—!”
Hoprig sat down, sitting where Janicot had sat, and Hoprig made himself comfortable. “That is as it may be. People get canonized in various ways, and people, if you have ever noticed it, are human—”
“Still, for all that, monsieur—”
“—With human frailties. Now my confreres, I find since the extension of my acquaintance in heavenly circles, are no exception to this rule. St. Afra, the patroness of Augsburg, was for many years a courtesan in that city, conducting a brothel in which three other saints, the blessed Digna, Eunomia and Eutropia, exerted themselves with equal vigor and viciousness. St. Aglaé and St. Boniface for a long while maintained an illicit carnal connection. St. Andrea of Corsini conducted himself in every respect abominably until his mother dreamed that she had given birth to a wolf, and so, of course, converted him. As for St. Augustine, I can but blush, my dear son, and refer you to his Confessions—”
“Still, monsieur, I think—”
“You are quite wrong. St. Benedict led for fifteen years a sinful life, precisely as St. Bavon was a profligate for fifty. St. Bernard Ptolemei was a highly successful lawyer, than which I need say no more—”
“Yet, monsieur, if I be not mistaken—”
“You are mistaken,” replied Hoprig. “The Saints Constantine and Charlemagne committed every sort of atrocity and abomination, excepting only that of parsimony to the Church. St. Christopher made a pact with Satan, and St. Cyprian of Antioch was, like you, my poor child, a most iniquitous sorcerer until he was converted through his lust for the very holy Justina—”
“Let us go no further in the alphabet, for there are twenty-six letters, of which, I perceive, you have reached only the third. I was merely about to observe,” said Florian, at a venture, “that you, after living dishonestly—”
“Now, if you come to that, St. George of Cappadocia was an embezzler, St. Guthlac of Croydon was by profession a cut-throat and a thief—”