Approaching, he read
that M. de Plehve had been assassinated at St. Petersburg. The
mad mixture of Russia and the Crusades, of the Hippodrome and the
Renaissance, drove him for refuge into the fascinating Church of
St. Pantaleon near by. Martyrs, murderers, Caesars, saints and
assassins -- half in glass and half in telegram; chaos of time,
place, morals, forces and motive -- gave him vertigo. Had one sat
all one's life on the steps of Ara Coeli for this? Was
assassination forever to be the last word of Progress? No one in
the street had shown a sign of protest; he himself felt none; the
charming Church with its delightful windows, in its exquisite
absence of other tourists, took a keener expression of celestial
peace than could have been given it by any contrast short of
explosive murder; the conservative Christian anarchist had come
to his own, but which was he -- the murderer or the murdered ?
The Virgin herself never looked so winning -- so One -- as in
this scandalous failure of her Grace. To what purpose had she
existed, if, after nineteen hundred years, the world was bloodier
than when she was born? The stupendous failure of Christianity
tortured history. The effort for Unity could not be a partial
success; even alternating Unity resolved itself into meaningless
motion at last. To the tired student, the idea that he must give
it up seemed sheer senility.
Pages:
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689