The Pocket Bible; or, Christian the Printer: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century. Эжен Сю

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СКАЧАТЬ souls of the dead from the tortures that they are undergoing; and you will be moreover contributing towards the holy work of restoring the Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul at Rome. Now, then, my brothers," he added, thumping anew upon the coffer, "come forward with your money! Come forward with your ducats! Come!"

      Upon this last exhortation the railing of the choir was thrown open. The small number of the charitably disposed who wished to deliver the souls in pain began filing before the coffer into which they dropped their offerings after making the sign of the cross; the confessionals, however, in which the pontifical penitentiaries took their seats, ready to issue letters of absolution, were immediately besieged by a mob of men and women, anxious to obtain impunity in the eyes of heaven and of their own conscience for sins ranging from the most venial up to monstrous deeds that cause nature to shudder. It was a frightful sight, the spectacle presented by the mob around these confessionals crowding to the quarry of impunity for crime.

      Good God! Your vicars order and exploit the traffic! Behold human conscience upturned, shaken at its very foundation, losing even the sense of discrimination between vice and virtue! The moral sense is perverted, it is smothered by sacrilegious superstition! Mankind is lashed to a vertigo of folly and evil by the assurance of impunity, feeling certain, Oh, God of justice! of having You for an accomplice! Souls, until then innocent, no longer recoil before any passion however execrable, the bare thought of which is a crime! Does not the Pope of Rome absolve for all eternity, in exchange for a few gold crowns, even parricide and incest? If only its faith is strong enough the incestuous or parricidal heart knows, feels itself absolved! Oh, in honor at least to the religious sentiment – the divine gift implanted in man's heart, whatever the dogma may be in which it is wrapped – there are Catholic priests of austere morals who, despite their intolerance, have, in these accursed times, indignantly repudiated the monstrous idolatries and savage fetichism that even ancient paganism knew nothing of! No! No! Christ, your celestial gospel is and will remain the most scathing condemnation of the horrors that are committed in your venerated name. Those papal penitentiaries in the confessionals emblazoned with the pontifical arms, those new dealers in merchandise in the Temple dare to sell for cash patents of salvation! Alas! After a few hurried words exchanged with Fra Girard, Hervé was one of the first to hurry to the confessionals and kneel down; he did not long remain there; those near him heard the papal penitentiary first utter a cry of surprise; silence ensued, broken by the intermittent sobs of the lad; the chinking of the money that was being counted out to the priest in the confessional announced the close of the absolutional conversation. Hervé issued out of the tribunal of penitence holding a parchment with a convulsive clutch, closely followed by Fra Girard; he cleaved the compact mass of people, and withdrew to one of the lateral chapels; there he knelt down before a sanctuary of the Virgin that a lamp illumined, and by its light read the letter of absolution that he had just bought with his father's money. The pontifical letter was couched in the following terms:

      May our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon you [here followed a blank space into which the name of the owner of the letter was to be inserted]; may He absolve you by the virtue of the Holy Passion. And I, in virtue of the apostolical power in me vested, do hereby absolve you from all ecclesiastical censures, judgments and punishments that you may have deserved; furthermore of all excesses, sins and crimes that you may have committed, however grave and enormous these may be, and whatever the cause thereof, even if such sins and crimes be those reserved to our Holy Father the Pope and to the apostolic See —such as bestiality, the sin against nature, parricide and incest. I hereby efface from you all traces of inability, all the marks of infamy that you may have drawn upon yourself on such occasions; I induct you anew as a participant of the sacraments of the Church; I re-incorporate you in the community of saints; I restore you to the innocence and purity that you were in at the hour of your baptism, so that, at the hour of your death, the door through which one passes to the place of torments and pain shall be closed to you, while on the contrary, the gate that leads to the Paradise of joy shall be wide open to you, and should you not die speedily, Oh, my son! this token of mercy shall remain unalterable until your ultimate end.

      In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen!

BROTHER JOHN TEZEL,Apostolic Commissioner, signed by his own hand.7

      Without rising from his knees Hervé frequently interrupted the reading of the document with suppressed signs of pleased and blissful astonishment. The absolution that he was now the owner of extended to the past, it covered the present, it reached the future. As Fra Girard called the purchaser's attention to the fact, the document bore no date and thereby extended the apostolic efficacy over all the sins, all the crimes that the holder of the indulgence might commit to the end of his days. Hervé folded the parchment and inserted it into the scapulary that hung from his neck under his shirt, bowed down till his forehead touched the slab of the floor at the foot of the sanctuary and kissed it devoutly. Alas! The unfortunate lad was sincere in his frightful thankfulness towards the divine power that granted him the remission. His mind being led astray by a detestable influence, he felt himself, he believed himself, absolved of all the wrongs that his delirious imagination raved over. Fra Girard contemplated the prostrate lad with an expression of sinister triumph. The latter suddenly rose and, as if seized with a vertigo, staggered towards the railing of the chapel. The Franciscan held him back by the arm, and pointing at the image of the Virgin, arrayed in a flowing robe of silver cloth studded with pearls, and her head crowned with a golden crown that glistened in the semi-darkness of the dimly-lighted sanctuary, said in a solemn voice:

      "Behold the image of the mother of our Savior, and remember the words of the Apostolic Commissioner. Even if the horrible sacrilege that he mentioned were a feasible thing, it could be absolved by the letter that you now own. If that is so, and it may not be doubted, what then becomes of the remorse and the terrors that have assailed you during the last three months? Since the day when, distracted with despair by the discovery of the frightful secret that had lain concealed in the bottom of your heart, you came to me, and yielding, despite yourself, to the irresistible instinct that whispered to you: 'Only in faith will you be healed,' you confessed your trials to me – since that day you have hourly realized that your instinct guided you rightly and that my words were true. To-day you are assured of a place in paradise. Hervé – do you hear me?"

      "I hear," and after a moment of pensiveness: "Oh, celestial miracle for which, with my forehead in the dust, I rendered thanks to the mother of our Savior. Yes, since a minute ago, from the moment that I became the owner of this sacred schedule, my conscience has regained its former serenity, my mind is in peace, my heart is full of hope. I now only need to will and to dare – I shall will, I shall dare! Mine is the bliss of paradise!"

      Hervé uttered these words with calm conviction. He did not lie. No, his conscience was serene, his mind at peace, his heart full of hope, even the lines on his face seemed suddenly transfigured; their savage and tormented expression made room for a sort of blissful ecstasy, a slight flush again enlivened the cheeks that frequent fasts, macerations and mental conflicts had paled. The monk smiled silently at the metamorphosis; he took Hervé by the arm, walked with him out of the church, and as the two stepped out upon the street said to him:

      "You have now entered upon the path of salvation; your faith has been tried – will you still hesitate to join the ranks of the militants, who openly preach and cause this faith to triumph, the miraculous efficacy of which you have yourself experienced this day? Think of the glory of our holy mother the Church."

      "Speak not now to me of such things. My thoughts are elsewhere – they are near my sister Hena."

      "Very well; but, Hervé, never forget what I have often told you, and that your modesty makes you disregard. Your intelligence is exceptional; your erudition extensive; heaven has endowed you with the precious gift of a persuasive eloquence; the monastic Orders, especially the one to which I belong, I say so in all humility, recruit themselves carefully with young men whose gifts give promise of a brilliant future; this is enough to tell you of what priceless value you would be to our Order; you could make with СКАЧАТЬ