Bab Bab 15 · WHAT HE THOUGHT

One last word.

Since this sort of details might, particularly at the present moment,

and to use an expression now in fashion, give to the Bishop of D—— a

certain “pantheistical” physiognomy, and induce the belief, either to

his credit or discredit, that he entertained one of those personal

philosophies which are peculiar to our century, which sometimes spring

up in solitary spirits, and there take on a form and grow until they

usurp the place of religion, we insist upon it, that not one of those

persons who knew Monseigneur Welcome would have thought himself

authorized to think anything of the sort. That which enlightened this

man was his heart. His wisdom was made of the light which comes from

there.

No systems; many works. Abstruse speculations contain vertigo; no,

there is nothing to indicate that he risked his mind in apocalypses.

The apostle may be daring, but the bishop must be timid. He would

probably have felt a scruple at sounding too far in advance certain

problems which are, in a manner, reserved for terrible great minds.

There is a sacred horror beneath the porches of the enigma; those

gloomy openings stand yawning there, but something tells you, you, a

passer-by in life, that you must not enter. Woe to him who penetrates

thither!

Geniuses in the impenetrable depths of abstraction and pure

speculation, situated, so to speak, above all dogmas, propose their

ideas to God. Their prayer audaciously offers discussion. Their

adoration interrogates. This is direct religion, which is full of

anxiety and responsibility for him who attempts its steep cliffs.

Human meditation has no limits. At his own risk and peril, it analyzes

and digs deep into its own bedazzlement. One might almost say, that by

a sort of splendid reaction, it with it dazzles nature; the mysterious

world which surrounds us renders back what it has received; it is

probable that the contemplators are contemplated. However that may be,

there are on earth men who—are they men?—perceive distinctly at the

verge of the horizons of reverie the heights of the absolute, and who

have the terrible vision of the infinite mountain. Monseigneur Welcome

was one of these men; Monseigneur Welcome was not a genius. He would

have feared those sublimities whence some very great men even, like

Swedenborg and Pascal, have slipped into insanity. Certainly, these

powerful reveries have their moral utility, and by these arduous paths

one approaches to ideal perfection. As for him, he took the path which

shortens,—the Gospel’s.

He did not attempt to impart to his chasuble the folds of Elijah’s

mantle; he projected no ray of future upon the dark groundswell of

events; he did not see to condense in flame the light of things; he had

nothing of the prophet and nothing of the magician about him. This

humble soul loved, and that was all.

That he carried prayer to the pitch of a superhuman aspiration is

probable: but one can no more pray too much than one can love too much;

and if it is a heresy to pray beyond the texts, Saint Theresa and Saint

Jerome would be heretics.

He inclined towards all that groans and all that expiates. The universe

appeared to him like an immense malady; everywhere he felt fever,

everywhere he heard the sound of suffering, and, without seeking to

solve the enigma, he strove to dress the wound. The terrible spectacle

of created things developed tenderness in him; he was occupied only in

finding for himself, and in inspiring others with the best way to

compassionate and relieve. That which exists was for this good and rare

priest a permanent subject of sadness which sought consolation.

There are men who toil at extracting gold; he toiled at the extraction

of pity. Universal misery was his mine. The sadness which reigned

everywhere was but an excuse for unfailing kindness. _Love each other;_

he declared this to be complete, desired nothing further, and that was

the whole of his doctrine. One day, that man who believed himself to be

a “philosopher,” the senator who has already been alluded to, said to

the Bishop: “Just survey the spectacle of the world: all war against

all; the strongest has the most wit. Your _love each other_ is

nonsense.”—_“Well,”_ replied Monseigneur Welcome, without contesting

the point, _“if it is nonsense, the soul should shut itself up in it,

as the pearl in the oyster.”_ Thus he shut himself up, he lived there,

he was absolutely satisfied with it, leaving on one side the prodigious

questions which attract and terrify, the fathomless perspectives of

abstraction, the precipices of metaphysics—all those profundities which

converge, for the apostle in God, for the atheist in nothingness;

destiny, good and evil, the way of being against being, the conscience

of man, the thoughtful somnambulism of the animal, the transformation

in death, the recapitulation of existences which the tomb contains, the

incomprehensible grafting of successive loves on the persistent _I_,

the essence, the substance, the Nile, and the Ens, the soul, nature,

liberty, necessity; perpendicular problems, sinister obscurities, where

lean the gigantic archangels of the human mind; formidable abysses,

which Lucretius, Manou, Saint Paul, Dante, contemplate with eyes

flashing lightning, which seems by its steady gaze on the infinite to

cause stars to blaze forth there.

Monseigneur Bienvenu was simply a man who took note of the exterior of

mysterious questions without scrutinizing them, and without troubling

his own mind with them, and who cherished in his own soul a grave

respect for darkness.

BOOK SECOND—THE FALL