‘He learned that fast?’ the corporal said.
‘Of course we had to be a little careful about his hands. He never meant nothing, see: he just didn’t know himself how strong they were, like that night last month.’
‘So you got along fine then,’ the corporal said.
‘It was duck soup. — So he was in too now and now he could even ride sometimes, with the government paying for it, getting closer and closer to Paris now; not much over a year and we were all the way up to Verdun, that any boche will tell you is right next door to Paris — —’
‘And still doing all right,’ the corporal said.
‘Why not? If you cant trust your money to a bank in peacetime, where else can you put it in a war except up the chimney or under the mattress or inside the clock? Or anywhere else you thought it was hidden for that matter because it didn’t matter to us; Horse here has a nose for a ten-franc note like a pig for a truffle.
Until that night last month and that was the old dame’s fault; all she needed to do was tell us where it was and then lay quiet and keep her mouth shut but that didn’t suit her, she had to lay there in the bed hollering her head off until Horse here had to shut her up — you know: no harm intended: just to squeeze her throat a little until we could have a little peace and quiet to hunt for it in. Only we forgot about the hands, and when I got back — —’
‘Got back?’ the corporal said.
‘I was downstairs hunting for the money. — got back, it was too late. So they caught us. And you’d have thought that would have satisfied them, especially as they even got the money back — —’
‘You found the money?’ the corporal said.
‘Sure. While he was keeping her quiet. — But no, that wasn’t enough — —’
‘You found the money and had got away with it, and then turned around and came back?’
‘What?’ the other said.
‘Why did you change your mind?’ the corporal said. After a second the other said:
‘Fag me again.’ The corporal gave him another cigarette. ‘Thanks,’ he said. The corporal extended the lighter. ‘Thanks,’ the other said. He snapped it and lit the cigarette and snuffed the lighter; again his two hands began the rapid and involuted gesture then stopped and in the same motion one of the hands tossed the lighter back to the corporal, the arms crossed again, palms to opposite elbows, the cigarette bobbing while he talked. ‘Where was I? oh yes. — But that didn’t suit them; just to take us out in a decent and peaceful way and shoot us wasn’t enough; they had to take Horse here off in a cellar somewhere and scare the daylights out of him. Justice, see?
Protecting our rights. Just catching us wasn’t enough; we got to insist we did it. Just me saying so wasn’t enough; Horse too has got to holler it to high heaven — whatever that means. But it’s all right now. They cant stop us now.’ He turned and clapped the second man a hard quick blow on the back: ‘Paris tomorrow morning, kid. Fasten on to that.’
The door opened. It was the same sergeant again. He did not enter, saying to the corporal: ‘Once more’ and then stood and held the door until the corporal had passed him. Then he closed and locked it. This time it was the office of the prison commandant himself and what he — the corporal — assumed to be just another N.C.O. until he saw, arranged on the cleared desk, the utensils for the Last Sacrament — urn ewer stole candles and crucifix — and only then remarked the small embroidered cross on the coat of the man standing beside them, the other sergeant closing that door too between them so that he and the priest were alone, the priest lifting his hand to inscribe into the invisible air the invisible Passion while the corporal paused for a moment just inside the door, not surprised yet either: just once more alert, looking at him: at which moment a third person in the room would have remarked that they were almost of an age.
‘Come in, my son,’ the priest said.
‘Good evening, Sergeant,’ the corporal said.
‘Cant you say Father?’ the priest said.
‘Of course,’ the corporal said.
‘Then say it,’ the priest said.
‘Of course, Father,’ the corporal said. He came on into the room, looking quietly and rapidly again at the sacred implements on the desk while the priest watched him.
‘Not that,’ the priest said. ‘Not yet. I came to offer you life.’
‘So he sent you,’ the corporal said.
‘He?’ the priest said. ‘What he can you mean, except the Giver of all life? Why should He send me here to offer you what He has already entrusted you with? Because the man you imply, for all his rank and power, can only take it from you. Your life was never his to give you because for all his stars and braid he too before God is just one more pinch of rotten and ephemeral dust.
It was neither of them which sent me here: not the One who has already given you life, nor the other who never had yours nor any other life within his gift. It was duty which sent me here. Not this—’ for an instant his hand touched the small embroidered cross on his collar ‘ — not my cloth, but my belief in Him; not even as His mouthpiece but as a man — —’
‘A French man?’ the corporal said.
‘All right,’ the priest said. ‘Yes, a Frenchman if you like. — commanded me here to command — not ask, offer: command — you to keep the life which you never had and never will have the refusal of, to save another one.’
‘To save another one?’ the corporal said.
‘The commander of your regiment’s division,’ the priest said. ‘He will die too, for what all the world he knows — the only world he does know because it was the one he dedicated his life to — will call his failure, where you will die for what you anyway will call a victory.’
‘So he did send you,’ the corporal said. ‘For blackmail.’
‘Beware,’ the priest said.
‘Then dont tell me this,’ the corporal said. ‘Tell him. If I can save Gragnon’s life only by not doing something you tell me I already cant and never could do anyway. Tell him then. I dont want to die either.’
‘Beware,’ the priest said.
‘That wasn’t who I meant,’ the corporal said. ‘I meant — —’
‘I know whom you meant,’ the priest said. ‘That’s why I said Beware. Beware Whom you mock by reading your own mortal’s pride into Him Who died two thousand years ago in the postulate that man shall never never never, need never never never, hold suzerainty over another’s life and death — absolved you and the man you mean both of that terrible burden: you of the right to and he of the need for, suzerainty over your life; absolved poor mortal man forever of the fear of the oppression, and the anguish of the responsibility, which suzerainty over human fate and destiny would have entailed on him and cursed him with, when He refused in man’s name the temptation of that mastery, refused the terrible temptation of that limitless and curbless power when He answered the Temptor: Render unto caesar the things which are caesar’s. — I know,’ he said quickly, before the corporal could have spoken: ‘To Chaulnesmont the things which are Chaulnesmont’s. Oh yes, you’re right; I’m a Frenchman first. And so now you can even cite the record at me, cant you? All right. Do it.’
‘The record?’ the corporal said.
‘The Book,’ the priest said. The corporal looked at him. ‘You mean you dont even know it?’
‘I cant read,’ the corporal said.
‘Then I’ll cite for you, plead for you,’ the priest said. ‘It wasn’t He with His humility and pity and sacrifice that converted the world, it was pagan and bloody Rome which did it with His martyrdom; furious and intractable dreamers had been bringing that same dream out of Asia Minor for three hundred years until at last one found a caesar foolish enough to crucify him. And you are right. But then so is he (I dont mean Him now, I mean the old man in that white room yonder onto whose shoulders you are trying to slough and shirk your right and duty for free will and decision).
Because only Rome could have done it, accomplished it, and even He (I do mean Him now) knew it, felt and sensed this, furious and intractable dreamer though He was. Because He even said it Himself: On this rock I found My church, even while He didn’t — and never would — realise the true significance of what He was saying, believing still that He was speaking poetic metaphor, synonym, parable — that rock meant unstable inconstant heart, and church meant airy faith. It wasn’t even His first and favorite sycophant who read that significance, who was also ignorant and intractable like Him and even in the end got himself also electrocuted by the dream’s intractable fire, like Him.
It was Paul, who was a Roman first and then a man and only then a dreamer
