De: ITALIAN FANTASIES
“Peace, woman,” said Yussef impatiently. “The High Priest and the Elders will but drive him from the city.”
“Nay, nay,” said Halphaï. “They hold him captive. And his disciples are fled. All save Yudas, who led a multitude with swords and staves to find him. And Shimeon-bar-Yonah too is taken, merely because his speech betrayeth him as a Galilæan. How then should _I_ dare stay, who have the ill-hap to be married to his mother’s sister!”
The little mother was moving towards the door. Her husband stopped her. “Whither goest thou?”
“To saddle the ass. I must to Yerushalaim!”
“Thou!”
“Who else? Shall that yellow-veiled woman of Magdala give him comfort?”
“And will he take comfort from _thee_? Doth he not teach his followers to hate their father and their mother? And doth he not scoff at the womb that bare him?”
“Not he, but his demon,” she answered obstinately, and pressed forward again.
His brow grew black. “But it is the Sabbath!”
“It is my first-born.”
“Thou speakest more foolishly than Job’s wife. Now we see whence Yeshua sucked his blasphemies.”
“It is my first-born!” she repeated more frenziedly.
“Thy first-born! But did he keep to-day the Fast of the First-born?”
“Let her go, Yussef,” pleaded Halphaï. “As Rabbi Hillel taught (his memory for a blessing), the Sabbath was handed to man, not man to the Sabbath!”
“And the wife to the husband,” retorted Yussef, “not the husband to the wife. I forbid thee, Miriam, to disturb the Passover peace. Go—and I put thee away publicly!”
She blenched and sank back on the divan. “Peace?” she moaned. “Thou callest this peace!”
“Obey thy lord, Miriam! _I_ will go.” And Halphaï’s wife stooped and kissed her.
Miriam burst into loud sobs. She caught her sister to her breast, and the two women mingled their tears.
The carpenter shrugged his shoulders. “Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who hast not made me a woman,” he said drily.
* * * * *
The walls of the little room seemed higher, the light stronger, the prayer devouter, the company more numerous. Instead of the two little Sabbath candles and the earthenware dishes, I saw a barbaric blaze of gold and rich stuffs and jewels, and my eyes blinked before the flames of tall candles shining in gold candlesticks on a magnificent altar, in the niche of which stood a black cedar-wood idol, crowned and holding a crowned doll, and wrapped in a marvellous ornate vestment widening out like a bell. Over my head around the rough, liver-coloured stone walls hung lamps and bronzes and candles held by Cupids, and gilded busts, and medallions and hearts and bronze reliefs and pictures, and even a cannon-ball, and at my feet surged the white head-shawls of prostrate worshippers, like a great wave breaking on the crimson steps of the altar.
And gradually I became aware that the room had now doors on the right and the left, and these of bronze and wondrously wrought after the fashion of the Renaissance, through which a stream of worshippers poured, kissing the bronze as they passed in and out. And following one stream and vaguely looking for Miriam and her husband and the Passover table, I was borne back into the room, through another door, and now found myself in a narrow and still more crowded space at the back of the altar, where the gorgeous jewelled black idol with her doll stood in her niche in the gleam of ever-burning silver lamps, and I saw a golden eagle in a yellow sun flying over her head, and over the eagle two gilded angels holding a glittering wreath, and still higher, through a hole in the roof, as riding on clouds, a blue-mantled Mother and Child among a soaring escort of angels, while near the floor I beheld a large metal box with a yawning slit, into which a kneeling, weeping press of people rained money.
“_Il Santo Camino, signore!_” said an ingratiating voice, and looking up I perceived at my side a beadle with a wand.
“The holy kitchen?” I repeated in amaze.
“_Si, signore._ Here is the hearth at which the Madonna cooked for the Holy Family.”
He pointed to the money-box, and I now indeed recognised the fireplace whence Miriam had taken the roasted bone and egg. But it had moved to another side of the living-room, unless I was confused by the altar planted in the place of the Passover table.
“Then this is the house of Nazara?” I said in a whisper, for, dazed as I was, I feared to disturb the worshippers.
“_Sicuro!_” He smiled reassuringly. “_La Santa Casa!_ Here the Holy Family abode in the peace and love of the Holy Ghost. And here there is Plenary Indulgence every day in the year. _Ecco!_ One of their pots!” And he produced a terra-cotta vessel, not unlike one I had seen the little olive-eyed woman wiping, save that it was lined with gold and adorned with bas-reliefs of the Manger and the Annunciation.
“That must have cost money,” I murmured feebly.
“_Già_,” he assented complacently. “And behold the _Madonna Nera_, carved by St. Luke. Her attire is worth 1,800,000 lire.”
“_Come?_” I gasped.
He spurned a sobbing peasant-woman with his foot and cleared a space with his staff that he might plant me at the centre of the money-box.
“_Passi_,” he said pleasantly, seeing I hesitated to displace these passionate souls. “Regard the jewels and precious stones of her robe, the diamonds, emeralds, and pearls in her crown, the collars of Oriental pearl, the rings, the crosses of topaz and diamonds, the Bambino’s diamond necklace, the ring on his finger, the medallion with the great diamonds given by the King of Saxony——” He trolled off the glittering catalogue, on and on, in a joyous, dominant voice, to which the sighs and groans of the worshippers made an undertone. Countesses and Cardinals, Popes and Marchese had vied in dressing the idol, and decorating the kitchen. “And you must see the Treasury,” he wound up. “Gifts from all the royal houses of Europe to Our Lady of Loreto!”
“Loreto?” I repeated dully.
He looked at me sharply, as at a scoffer.
“But how did the Holy House get to Loreto?” I added hastily.
“It was carried by angels,” he answered simply.
“But when?”
“On the night of the tenth of December in the year 1294 from the bearing of the Virgin.”
“Who saw it carried?”
“You are an Englishman,” he answered briefly. “You shall see it in English.”
He made a path through the praying crowd, and I followed him without, and my breath failed me as I became aware that the Holy House was inclosed in a precious outer casing of marble, carved with beautiful reliefs of the life and death of the Virgin, holding all round its four lofty walls niches with statues of prophets and sybils and other gleaming altars, each with its surf of worshippers, and that this marvellous screen, so rich in the work of the Masters, was itself engirdled by a vast high-domed church with rich-dyed windows, gilded like a Venetian palace and full of arches and pillars and altars and chapels and mosaics and statues and busts and thick-populated frescoes, while from the centre of the choir windows a haloed Lady in a blue mantle gazed down upon her white-hooded ghostly worshippers filling the nave. And all around her from the interlacing of the arches and from the painted walls haloes gleamed like a firmament of crescent moons.
“Behold there!” said the beadle, pointing with his staff, and I saw that round the projecting base of the marble walls ran two deep parallel furrows. “Worn in the stone by the knees of six centuries of pilgrims,” he said pleasantly. “Of course there are not many to-day, being an ordinary Sunday, but in the year there are a hundred thousand, and in the season of the pilgrimages, or on the Feast of the Assumption——” An expressive gesture wound up the sentence.
We passed along the aisles, just peeping into the copious chapels, all pervaded by the ubiquitous Maria in picture or mosaic, in statue or bas-relief—Maria Immaculate, Maria the Virgin, Maria the Mother of God, Maria the Compassionate, Maria the Mediatress, Maria Crowned; and the marriage of Maria, and her death, and the visit to Elizabeth, and the Annunciation, and her family tree, and the disputes of the Sorbonne over the dogmas concerning her. And as we walked the organ began pealing, and priests and choristers chanted.
“_Ecco!_” cried the beadle, as he stopped in the left aisle and pointed to a great black-framed slate between two altars. “In your own English!”
I looked and read the headline of white letters:
“The Wondrous Flitting of the Kirk of our Blest Ledy of Lavreto.”
Underneath ran in parallel columns these two sentences:
“By decree of the Meikle Werthy Monsignor Vincent Casal of Bolonia Ruler of This Helly Place Vnder the protection of the Mest Werthy Cardinal Moroni.”
“I Robert Corbington Priest of the Companie of Jesvs in the Zeir MDCXXXV Heve Trvlie translated the premisses of the Latin Storie Hangged vp in the seyd Kirk.”
And underneath these parallel statements were the words, “To the Praise and Glorie of the Mest Pvre and Immaculate Virgin.”
Then began the story proper:
“The Kirk of Lavreto was a caumber of the hovse of the blest Virgin near Jerusalem in the towne of Nazaret in which she was borne and treined vp and greeted of the angel and hairin also Conceaved and norisht har sonne Jesvs.”
My eye ran impatiently over these known details and lighted at a lower point of the great dimly lit slate.
“Pavl de Sylva an eremyt of micle godliness, wha woned in a cell near by this Kirk whair daily he went to mattins, seyd that for ten zeirs, one the eight of September, twelve hovrs before day, he saw a light descend frem heaven vpon it, whilk he said was by the bu weathair shawed har selfe [_sic_] one the feest of har birth. In proof of all whilk twa verteous men of the seyd towne of Recanah many times avowed to me Rvler of Terreman and Govenor of the forseyd Kirk as followeth. Ane of them, nemmed Pavle Renallvci, affirmed that his grandsyres grandsyre sawe when the angels broght it over sea setting it in the forseyd wood and hed oft frequented it thair, the other nemmed Francis Prior sicklik seyd that his Grandsyre, being a hunder and twaintie zeirs awd hed also meikle havnted it in the same place and for a mere svr testimony that it had beine thair he reported that his grandsyres grandsyre hed a hovse beside it wharin he dwelled and that in his dayes it was beared by the angels frae thence to the hill of they tweye brothers whar they set it as seyd. . . .”
“The angels seem to have carried it about more than once,” I interrupted.
“_Già_,” said the beadle. “At first they placed it on the hill of Picino, in a grove of laurels which bowed before it and remained in adoration. But so many thieves and assassins took cover under them to plunder the pious pilgrims of their offerings that the laurels raised their heads again, and after a stay of only eight months the Holy House moved.”
“And came here?”
“Not yet. It moved first to a pleasant hill belonging to the brothers Artici, ancestors of Leopardi.”
“Ah, the hill of they tweye brothers,” I murmured.
“But the treasure heaped upon it dazzled them. They might have fought over it like Cain and Abel. So the house moved on.”
“And yet even Leopardi chanted the Madonna,” I said.
“_Lo credo_,” said the beadle, unastonished. “And there is still an inscription on the hill, but it does not console the neighbourhood any more than the chapel at Ravinizza.”
“The chapel at Ravinizza?”
“Did I not say? That was where it stopped first—near Dalmatia.”
“Quite a wandering Jew-house,” I murmured.
“That was in 1291, when the Holy Land fell into the power of the Infidel”
“Ah, that was why it left Palestine!”
“Naturally. And you may imagine the agony of the Dalmatians when they returned from the Crusades to find the Holy House no longer in Ravinizza. Even to-day the pilgrims sail out in little boats singing, ‘Return to us, Maria, with thy house!’ But how could it return to Dalmatia, seeing that seventy-five years before it left Palestine the blessed St. Francis had foretold its coming here by his word _Picenum_, which is a region on our side of the Adriatic, and being, moreover, interpreted by Latin scholars is a prophetic acrostic?”
“It seems a pity the house did not come straight to Loreto,” I ventured.
“We are fortunate it did not go straight back to Nazareth after the battle of Lepanto,” he said simply. “It was after our Lady’s victory over the Turks that this marble screen was placed around it. Here is the Treasury.” And thrusting roughly through the press of congregants, he opened a door and ushered me into a palatial room where under the ceiling-frescoes of Pomerancio of Pesaro I saw what seemed a vast bazaar of every precious article known to humanity.
“The New Treasury,” he said apologetically. “The old treasure was seized by Napoleon. It was worth 96,000,000 lire.” He looked sad.
“And how much is this worth?”
“Only 4,000,000.” And the unctuous catalogue recommenced. “A Genoese family had given this case of jewellery; it was worth 100,000 lire. These were the copes and vestments of Pio Nono (150,000 lire). This was the diadem of Maria, Queen of Spain, wife of Carlo IV—behold the amethysts, the brilliants, the rubies. These Oriental pearls were from the Princess of Würtemberg. Each pearl cost 150,000 lire and there were forty-three pearls—the _signore_ could calculate for himself. This diamond tiara with an Oriental pearl in the centre was given by Maria Louisa, Duchessa di Parma. It was worth 420,000 lire.”
“Restoring some of her first husband’s plunder,” I interrupted.
“_Già._ And the _Madonna Nera_ was given back too. And this pearl and gold covering for her is from Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria. It is worth 12,000 lire. And Giuseppe Napoleon’s wife gave us this monstrance. And this cup is from Prince Maximilian of Austria, and these regalia——”
The list went on, and I studied a coral model of the _Santa Casa_ with the Mother and Son riding on the roof, while from the church came a boy’s voice soaring heavenward.
“And do you refuse offerings from those who are not royal?” I broke in at last.
“Ah, no,” he said seriously. “See! In that glass case are a thousand rings from a thousand pilgrims, and this standard is from a pilgrim of Budapest, and this little wooden ship—the _Maria_—was given by a sailor, and this pearl showing the Madonna and her Son was found inside a fish by a fisherman, and these ornaments painted with the juice of grass are the work of priests, and this beautiful bronze candelabrum was given by the Guild of Blacksmiths of Bologna. A Capuchin father from South America brought us these great bouquets of flowers made of the wings of Brazilian birds, and a Roumanian noble this little Byzantine brass Madonna, and Prince Carraciolo of Naples——”
“_Basta!_” I cried hurriedly, for he was back in the “Almanach de Gotha,” and, slipping a large piece of silver with a royal portrait on it into his hand, I moved towards the door.
His face shone. “But you have not seen the cups in the _Santa Casa_ from which the Holy Family drank. And their little bells, and——”
“I have seen enough,” I said.
“And the cannon-ball,” he went on in undiminished gratitude. “The cannon-ball which shattered the pavilion of Pope Julius II when he was besieging a city, but which by the grace of the Blessed Virgin left him un——”
I escaped into the crowd of snooded peasant women and worked my way along the aisle till I stood outside the portal under a gigantic Madonna and Child.
But the beadle was beside me.
“Go and look at the Fontana della Santa Casa.” And he pointed in parting gratitude to the centre of the piazza. “_Bellissima!_”
I did not go, but I looked at the great marble fountain with its grotesque beasts and Cupids and basins, and remembering the humble village fountain at which the carpenter’s daughter had filled her urn, I turned sharply to the right and found myself descending a long sordid street of shops and stalls, all doing a busy trade—despite the Sunday—in crosses, rosaries, crucifixes, chaplets, picture-postcards, medals, and all the knick-knacks of holiness. Sometimes through open windows of the ugly one-storey houses I caught sight of the landscape below—the path descending to the sea, bordered with buttercups and a-flutter with birds, the rolling olive-plains, the strip of blue sea, the wonderful headland. Never had I seen a lovelier view shut out by meaner buildings. With its patches of refuse and its dreary shops and booths it seemed the ugliest street in all Italy, bearing on its face the mark of its bastard origin—a city grown up not from natural healthy human life, but for the exploitation of a miracle.
And this it was that drew gold like water from the crowned heads of Europe. And this it was that had drawn hither even Descartes, the first Apostle of Philosophic Doubt. Surely “_Non_ cogito, ergo sum,” is the motto of Faith, I thought.
* * * * *
I stood in a vast ancient market-place among canvas-covered stalls, by a lovely fountain with a smiling little Bacchus that faced an old cathedral, and I gazed like ten thousand others at a lovely open-air pulpit that rose in the shadow of a tall campanile. From a bronze capital it rose, girdled with beautiful marble reliefs of dancing children by Donatello and protected from the sun by a charming circular roof, and in this delectable coign of vantage stood a priest holding something that fevered the perspiring mob.
“_La sacra cintola! La sacra cintola!_”
I knew what the Virgin’s girdle would be like, for had I not seen her handing it to St. Thomas in Lippo Lippi’s picture in this same town of Prato, as she flew up to heaven in the radiance of her youth and beauty, standing on cherubs’ heads and escorted by angels? But now so far as I could see this tasselled belt, it seemed to correspond ill with the waist measurement of the little mother of Nazara.
Some white pigeons fluttered round the priest’s head and settled on the pulpit, and a great sigh of ecstasy went up from the people.
I looked round at the little Bacchus. But he was still smiling.
* * * * *
I stood before an altar in a little church, but this time a sweet-faced woman in a wimple stood beside me.
“The wall is behind the altar,” she said. “And once a year the miraculous image of the Madonna of the Bed is shown to the people of Pistoja and the pilgrims, exactly as Our Lady of the Graces impressed it on this piece of wall here when she appeared to the sick girl. Very beautiful is she in her crown and mantle, clasping to her arms the crowned Bambino as she flies upwards.”
“And where is the bed?”
“The bed was removed from this sanctuary, which it blocked up disproportionately. A separate little chapel was built for it.”
We passed to the bed-chapel by way of the old cloisters of the Ospedale, and saw in a small room a heavy brownish wooden bed with a red quilt, made as for an occupant. A Madonna and Child was painted on the headpiece, and a Madonna and Child at the foot, and a Madonna and Child hung on the wall.
“And when was the miracle wrought?” I asked.
“In 1336.”
The very year of the death of Cino, the poet of Pistoja and the friend of Dante, I remembered. And Dante and Cino had receded into the dim centuries while this bed with its prosaic quilt and pillows stood stolid, inscribed at head and foot with inscriptions dated 1336 and 1334, begging me to pray for the souls of Condoso Giovanni and Fra Ducchio.
“Here,” explained the sweet-faced sister, “the poor girl had lain many long years, incurable, when one day the Virgin appeared in dazzling beauty, holding the Child, and told two little boys who happened to be in the hospital to fetch brother Jacopo della Cappa. The venerable brother, being busy confessing, refused to be disturbed, whereupon the Virgin sent a second message bidding him come at once, for she desired him to predict a pestilence in Pistoja, of which he would die in a month. So he came forthwith, but he had scarcely entered the room when the dazzling apparition disappeared. But she left the invalid girl in perfect health, and her holy image on the wall.”
“And did Fra Jacopo duly die?”
“To the day. And so great was the plague that there was scarcely any one left to administer the last office.”
“As disproportionate as the bed to the church,” I thought, “to kill off all Pistoja and save one bedridden girl.” But how utter such a thought to this sweet-faced sister?
“Since then the bed and the image on the wall have wrought many miracles,” she said. “The blind have had their sight, the deaf their hearing, the paralysed their limbs. That was why the name was changed from Our Lady of the Bed to Our Lady of the Graces. And countless were the pilgrims that came. But in 1780 the wicked Scipione Ricci, who was a secret Jansenist, was made our bishop, and he tried to destroy the faith in our sanctuary and in the Girdle of Prato. But our neighbours of Prato rose against him, rushed into the cathedral, smashed his episcopal chair, and sacked his palace. He had to resign his bishopric, and so our faith was purged of the heretic, and Maria was avenged. Ah, that jubilee of her Immaculate Conception in 1904! It was a day of Paradise.”
* * * * *
Again a haze disturbs my vision. For a moment I see the little olive-eyed Jewess of Nazara, racked between husband and son, wringing her impotent hands; then my vision clears, and I am reading a printed Italian prayer before a chapel of the Madonna in a mighty fane.
“TO THE HOLY IMMACULATE VIRGIN OF HOPE VENERATED IN THE BASILICA OF S. FREDIANO
“Kneeling before you, Immaculate Virgin, Mother of God, consoler of the afflicted, refuge of sinners, we pray you to turn upon us your looks full of goodness, compassion, and love. You see all our spiritual and temporal needs. Obtain from your divine Son sincere contrition for sin, light to know the truth, force to conquer temptations, help to believe and act as true Christians, patience in tribulations, peace of heart, holy perseverance to the end. Obtain for us that there may remain far from us disease, pestilence, hunger, war, earthquakes, fires, drought, flood, sudden death. Take this City under your particular protection, preserve it, defend it, cause ever to reign therein the spirit of religion and of concord, and in private families mutual charity, domestic content, and good morals. . . . Whoever will devoutly recite this will acquire forty days’ Indulgence already conceded by His Most Reverend Excellence Monsignore the Archbishop Filippo Santi.
“_Lucca_, 1848.”
* * * * *
I seemed to be back in Asia on a burning June day fifteen hundred years before this prayer was written, much pushed about by the crowd that surged round a church.
“Is it the Whitsuntide service?” I asked a priest at last in the Greek I heard on all sides.
“Nay; art a barbarian or a worshipper of the Temple of Diana that thou knowest not the Church of the Theotokos, and the great Imperial Council of Bishops that is sitting there to avenge the insults of Nestorius to the Virgin?”
“What insults?” I murmured.
“Surely thou hast snored in the cave in the Pion Hill with our Seven Sleepers! This blasphemous Patriarch of Constantinople denies our Lady the title _Theotokos_, would argue that she is not Mother of God, but that the Christ born through her was only the human part of Him, not the Eternal Logos.” His voice trembled, his beady eyes flamed with passion. “And he dares come defend his thesis here—in Ephesus, where the Holy Virgin lies buried! But our saintly Cyril of Alexandria hath drawn up twelve anathemas and will stamp him out as he stamped out that minx Hypatia.”
“Is Cyril here too, then?”
“Ay, and what an ambrosial homily he preached! ‘Hail, Mary, Mother of God, spotless dove! Hail, Mary, perpetual lamp at which was kindled the Sun of Justice! Hail, Mary! Thanks to Thee, the archangels rejoice and sing; thanks to Thee, the Magi followed the star; thanks to Thee the college of Apostles was established. . . .’” His voice died away in reminiscent ecstasy.
“Then Cyril and Nestorius are now in debate?”
“Nay, the heretic shrinks from appearing—he pretexts that all the bishops are not arrived, and he induced the Emperor’s commissioner to protest against the sitting. But as thou seest, the Council is going on—hath been going on from early morn—there are two hundred bishops.”
“There are only a hundred and fifty,” put in a voice. “It is scandalous.”
“Ay,” assented another voice. “Where is the Patriarch of Antioch?”
The priest turned on the Nestorians. “It is beasts like you with whom Paul fought here,” he said.
“Beast thyself,” retorted a physician in a long robe, “to suggest that God could be contained in the womb.” It was the beginning of a scuffle that grew to a bloody battle between the Nestorian minority and the orthodox. Daggers and scimitars gleamed in the air. I saw a group of Nestorians take refuge in a church, but fly from it again, leaving a trail of bleeding corpses along the aisle. The survivors made for the harbour, hoping doubtless for safety in the multitude of boats and ships.
And ever thicker grew the crowd surging round the Council-chamber, till at last as the long summer day closed, a rumbling as of distant thunder was heard from within—“Anathema! Anathema!” And the cry passed to the crowd—“Anathema! Anathema!”—till the whole firmament seemed to crash and rock with it and men cheered and danced and tossed their weapons in air. And as the venerable figures began to troop out and the word came that Nestorius was deposed, a thousand torches leapt as by magic into flame, and men escorted the Bishops to their lodgings, leaping and singing, and lo! round the whole city blazed illuminations and bonfires.
And my eyes, piercing through the future, beheld Italian _bottegas_ with immortal Masters and Pupils, turning out through the centuries portraits of the Madonna and Child, to be blazoned henceforward inseparable, a symbol of the true faith: delectable, innumerable, filling the whole earth with their glory.
* * * * *
The close smell of the studios gave way again to the odour of crowded humanity and I was in the arena of Seville. But never, not even at Easter, had I seen the populace so joyous, the ladies shrouded in such rich mantillas or flirting such precious fans, the picadors so gaily caparisoned, the toreadors so daring, the bulls maddened with so many banderillas or disembowelling so many horses. It was the mutual ecstasy of slaughter. And from all parts of the city penetrated the chiming of bells, while the thunder of festive cannon sometimes drowned even the roar of the ring. And at every thrilling stroke or perilous charge there came from parted lips, “_Ave Maria purissima_” or “_Viva nuestra Señora_,” and from all around rose the instinctive reply: “_Sin peccado concebida_.”
Gradually, as I listened to the conversation in the intervals of the bull fights, I became aware of the sense of the _Fiesta_. All this overflow of religious rapture sprang not from the bulls but the Bull—_Regis Pacifici_—which after centuries of passionate controversy had at last been launched by Paul V in this sixteen hundred and seventeenth year from the bearing of the Virgin, forbidding the opponents of Immaculate Conception to sustain their doctrine in public. Maria had been conceived without sin. The last flaw had been removed from her perfection.
“Heaven rewards us for expelling the last of the Moors,” cried a lovely Señora with a dazzling flash of eyes and teeth. “And now that we have purged Spain and placed her and her mighty possessions under the protection of the Immaculate Conception, her future shall be even more glorious than her past.”
But my reply was drowned by the roar of the ring as the dead bull was trailed off at a gallop.
“_Ave Maria purissima!_”
“_Sin peccado concebida!_”
* * * * *
I am still in Spain, watching Señor Bartholomé Estéban Murillo polish off his Madonnas for country fairs or South American convents. Presently under the guidance of Señor Pacheco, Holy Inquisitor of pictures, he paints the popular dogma of the day, in the shape of little angels floating below a lovely lady in a blue mantle standing with clasped hands on the earth-ball, and the scene shifts to France where two centuries later the picture is purchased at a fabulous price by the Louvre, just before Pio Nono from his refuge at Gaeta publishes the Bull _Ineffabilis_, definitely declaring that the freedom of the Virgin from original sin is a divine revelation. Cheap coloured pictures of the “Immaculate Conception” multiply, and Bernadette, a pious young shepherdess in the French Pyrenees, beholds in a grotto by a spring a White Lady, veiled from head to foot, with a cerulean floating scarf, a chaplet with golden links, and two golden roses on her naked feet, who announces herself as “The Immaculate Conception” and demands a Procession to her shrine.
And before my eyes unrolls the long panorama, painted in immortal colours by the epical brush of Zola: the mushroom Lourdes of hotels and holy shops replacing the rude village, the Hospital of our Lady of Sorrows, the crowned statue of our Lady of Salvation, the Fathers of the Grotto, the Blue Sisters, the Church of the Rosary, the Basilica swathed in splendid banners, glittering with golden hearts innumerable, and jewels and marbles and marvellous lamps; the unending masses and litanies, the three hundred thousand pilgrims a year, the thaumaturgic bathing pools, unclean, abominable, the White Train rolling through the night with its hideous agglomeration of human agonies, amid ecstatic canticles to the Madonna, the thirty thousand tapers winding round in leagues of flame to the rhythm of interminable invocations, the perpetual thunder of supplication breaking frenziedly on the figure of the Madonna framed in the ever-blazing Grotto.
* * * * *