Dreams by Olive Schreiner (bookstand for reading .txt) 📕

>London.

 

VII. IN A RUINED CHAPEL.

 

“I cannot forgive—I love.”

 

There are four bare walls; there is a Christ upon the walls, in red,

carrying his cross; there is a Blessed Bambino with the face rubbed out;

there is Madonna in blue and red; there are Roman soldiers and a Christ

with tied hands. All the roof is gone; overhead is the blue, blue Italian

sky; the rain has beaten holes in the walls, and the plaster is peeling

from it. The chapel stands here alone upon the promontory, and by day and

by night the sea breaks at its feet. Some say that it was set here by the

monks from the island down below, that they might bring their sick here in

times of deadly plague. Some say that it was set here that the passing

monks and friars, as they hurried by upon the roadway, might stop and say

their prayers here. Now no one stops to pray here, and the sick come no

more to be healed.

 

Behind it runs the old Roman road. If you climb it and come and sit there

alone on a hot sunny day you may almost hear at last the clink of the Roman

soldiers upon the pavement, and the sound of that older time, as you sit

there in the sun, when Hannibal and his men broke through the brushwood,

and no road was.

 

Now it is very quiet. Sometimes a peasant girl comes riding by between her

panniers, and you hear the mule’s feet beat upon the bricks of the

pavement; sometimes an old woman goes past with a bundle of weeds upon her

head, or a brigand-looking man hurries by with a bundle of sticks in his

hand; but for the rest the Chapel lies here alone upon the promontory,

between the two bays and hears the sea break at its feet.

 

I came here one winter’s day when the midday sun shone hot on the bricks of

the Roman road. I was weary, and the way seemed steep. I walked into the

chapel to the broken window, and looked out across the bay. Far off,

across the blue, blue water, were towns and villages, hanging white and red

dots, upon the mountain-sides, and the blue mountains rose up into the sky,

and now stood out from it and now melted back again.

 

The mountains seemed calling to me, but I knew there would never be a

bridge built from them to me; never, never, never! I shaded my eyes with

my hand and turned away. I could not bear to look at them.

 

I walked through the ruined Chapel, and looked at the Christ in red

carrying his cross, and the Blessed rubbed-out Bambino, and the Roman

soldiers, and the folded hands, and the reed; and I went and sat down in

the open porch upon a stone. At my feet was the small bay, with its white

row of houses buried among the olive trees; the water broke in a long,

thin, white line of foam along the shore; and I leaned my elbows on my

knees. I was tired, very tired; tired with a tiredness that seemed older

than the heat of the day and the shining of the sun on the bricks of the

Roman road; and I lay my head upon my knees; I heard the breaking of the

water on the rocks three hundred feet below, and the rustling of the wind

among the olive trees and the ruined arches, and then I fell asleep there.

I had a dream.

 

A man cried up to God, and God sent down an angel to help him; and the

angel came back and said, “I cannot help that man.”

 

God said, “How is it with him?”

 

And the angel said, “He cries out continually that one has injured him; and

he would forgive him and he cannot.”

 

God said, “What have you done for him?”

 

The angel said, “All—. I took him by the hand, and I said, ‘See, when

other men speak ill of that man do you speak well of him; secretly, in ways

he shall not know, serve him; if you have anything you value share it with

him, so, serving him, you will at last come to feel possession in him, and

you will forgive.’ And he said, ‘I will do it.’ Afterwards, as I passed

by in the dark of night, I heard one crying out, ‘I have done all. It

helps nothing! My speaking well of him helps me nothing! If I share my

heart’s blood with him, is the burning within me less? I cannot forgive; I

cannot forgive! Oh, God, I cannot forgive!’

 

“I said to him, ‘See here, look back on all your past. See from your

childhood all smallness, all indirectness that has been yours; look well at

it, and in its light do you not see every man your brother? Are you so

sinless you have right to hate?’

 

“He looked, and said, ‘Yes, you are right; I too have failed, and I forgive

my fellow. Go, I am satisfied; I have forgiven;’ and he laid him down

peacefully and folded his hands on his breast, and I thought it was well

with him. But scarcely had my wings rustled and I turned to come up here,

when I heard one crying out on earth again, ‘I cannot forgive! I cannot

forgive! Oh, God, God, I cannot forgive! It is better to die than to

hate! I cannot forgive! I cannot forgive!’ And I went and stood outside

his door in the dark, and I heard him cry, ‘I have not sinned so, not so!

If I have torn my fellows’ flesh ever so little, I have kneeled down and

kissed the wound with my mouth till it was healed. I have not willed that

any soul shall be lost through hate of me. If they have but fancied that I

wronged them I have lain down on the ground before them that they might

tread on me, and so, seeing my humiliation, forgive and not be lost through

hating me; they have not cared that my soul should be lost; they have not

willed to save me; they have not tried that I should forgive them!’

 

“I said to him, ‘See here, be thou content; do not forgive: forget this

soul and its injury; go on your way. In the next world perhaps—’

 

“He cried, ‘Go from me, you understand nothing! What is the next world to

me! I am lost now, today. I cannot see the sunlight shine, the dust is in

my throat, the sand is in my eyes! Go from me, you know nothing! Oh, once

again before I die to see that the world is beautiful! Oh, God, God, I

cannot live and not love. I cannot live and hate. Oh, God, God, God!’ So

I left him crying out and came back here.”

 

God said, “This man’s soul must be saved.”

 

And the angel said “How?”

 

God said, “Go down you, and save it.”

 

The angel said, “What more shall I do?”

 

Then God bent down and whispered in the angel’s ear, and the angel spread

out its wings and went down to earth.

 

And partly I woke, sitting there upon the broken stone with my head on my

knee; but I was too weary to rise. I heard the wind roam through the olive

trees and among the ruined arches, and then I slept again.

 

The angel went down and found the man with the bitter heart and took him by

the hand, and led him to a certain spot.

 

Now the man wist not where it was the angel would take him nor what he

would show him there. And when they came the angel shaded the man’s eyes

with his wing, and when he moved it the man saw somewhat on the earth

before them. For God had given it to that angel to unclothe a human soul;

to take from it all those outward attributes of form, and colour, and age,

and sex, whereby one man is known from among his fellows and is marked off

from the rest, and the soul lay before them, bare, as a man turning his eye

inwards beholds himself.

 

They saw its past, its childhood, the tiny life with the dew upon it; they

saw its youth when the dew was melting, and the creature raised its

Lilliputian mouth to drink from a cup too large for it, and they saw how

the water spilt; they saw its hopes that were never realized; they saw its

hours of intellectual blindness, men call sin; they saw its hours of all-radiating insight, which men call righteousness; they saw its hour of

strength, when it leaped to its feet crying, “I am omnipotent;” its hour of

weakness, when it fell to the earth and grasped dust only; they saw what it

might have been, but never would be.

 

The man bent forward.

 

And the angel said, “What is it?”

 

He answered, “It is I! it is myself!” And he went forward as if he would

have lain his heart against it; but the angel held him back and covered his

eyes.

 

Now God had given power to the angel further to unclothe that soul, to take

from it all those outward attributes of time and place and circumstance

whereby the individual life is marked off from the life of the whole.

 

Again the angel uncovered the man’s eyes, and he looked. He saw before him

that which in its tiny drop reflects the whole universe; he saw that which

marks within itself the step of the furthest star, and tells how the

crystal grows under ground where no eye has seen it; that which is where

the germ in the egg stirs; which moves the outstretched fingers of the

little newborn babe, and keeps the leaves of the trees pointing upward;

which moves where the jelly-fish sail alone on the sunny seas, and is where

the lichens form on the mountains’ rocks.

 

And the man looked.

 

And the angel touched him.

 

But the man bowed his head and shuddered. He whispered—“It is God!”

 

And the angel re-covered the man’s eyes. And when he uncovered them there

was one walking from them a little way off;—for the angel had re-clothed

the soul in its outward form and vesture—and the man knew who it was.

 

And the angel said, “Do you know him?”

 

And the man said, “I know him,” and he looked after the figure.

 

And the angel said, “Have you forgiven him?”

 

But the man said, “How beautiful my brother is!”

 

And the angel looked into the man’s eyes, and he shaded his own face with

his wing from the light. He laughed softly and went up to God.

 

But the men were together on earth.

 

I awoke.

 

The blue, blue sky was over my head, and the waves were breaking below on

the shore. I walked through the little chapel, and I saw the Madonna in

blue and red, and the Christ carrying his cross, and the Roman soldiers

with the rod, and the Blessed Bambino with its broken face; and then I

walked down the sloping rock to the brick pathway. The olive trees stood

up on either side of the road, their black berries and pale-green leaves

stood out against the sky; and the little ice-plants hung from the crevices

in the stone wall. It seemed to me as if it must have rained while I was

asleep. I thought I had never seen the heavens and the earth look so

beautiful before.