Chapter 14

The life of that particular period, if it was endurable for quiet folk who were careful to have nothing to do with politics--this life of the Empire near its end, could be nothing but a scandalous spectacle for an honest-minded and high-souled man such as Augustin. It ought to have disgusted him at once with remaining in the world. At Milan, connected as he was with the Court, he was in a good position to see how much baseness and ferocity may spring from human avarice and ambition. If the present was hideous, the future promised to be sinister. The Roman Empire no longer existed save in name. Foreigners, come from all the countries of the Mediterranean, plundered the provinces under its authority. The army was almost altogether in the hands of the Barbarians. They were Gothic tribunes who kept order outside the basilica where Ambrose had closed himself in with his people to withstand the order of the Empress Justina, who wished to hand over this church to the Arians. Levantine eunuchs domineered over the exchequer-clerks in the palace, and officials of all ranks. All these people plundered where they could. The Empire, even grown feeble, was always an excellent machine to rule men and extract gold from nations. Accordingly, ambitious men and adventurers, wherever they came from, tried for the Purple: it was still worth risking one's skin for. Even more than the patriots (and there were still some very energetic men of this sort who were overcome with grief at the state of things), the men of rapine and violence were interested in maintaining the Empire. The Barbarians themselves desired to be included, so that they might pillage it with more impunity.

As for the emperors, even sincere Christians, they were obliged to become abominable tyrants to defend their constantly threatened lives. Never were executions more frequent or more cruel than at this time. At Milan they might have shewn Augustin, hard by the Imperial sleeping apartments, the cave where the preceding Emperor, choleric Valentinian, kept two bears, "Bit of Gold" and "Innocence," who were his rapid executioners. He fed them with the flesh of those condemned to die. Possibly "Bit of Gold" was still living. "Innocence"--observe the atrocious irony of this name--had been restored to the liberty of her native forests, as a reward for her good and loyal services.

Was Augustin, who still thought of becoming an official, going to mix in with this lot of swindlers, assassins, and brute beasts? As he studied them near at hand, he felt his goodwill grow weak. Like all those who belong to worn-out generations, he must have been disgusted with action and the villainies it involves. Just before great catastrophes, or just after, there is an epidemic of black pessimism which freezes delicate souls. Besides, he was ill--a favourable circumstance for a disappointed man if he entertains thoughts of giving up the world. In the fogs of Milan his chest and throat became worse and worse. And then it is likely enough that he was not succeeding better as rhetorician than he had at Rome. It was a kind of fatality for all Africans. However great their reputation in their own country, that was the end of it as soon as they crossed the sea. Apuleius, the great man of Carthage, had tried the experiment to his cost. They had made fun of his guttural Carthaginian pronunciation. The same kind of thing happened to Augustin. The Milanese turned his African accent into ridicule. He even found among them certain purists who discovered solecisms in his phrases.

But these scratches at his self-respect, this increasing disgust of men and things, were small matters compared to what was going on within him. Augustin had a sick soul. The forebodings he had always been subject to were now become the suffering of every moment. At certain times he was assailed by those great waves of sadness which unfurl all of a sudden from the depths of the unknown. In such minutes we believe that the whole world is hurling itself against us. The great wave rolled him over; he got up again all wounded. And he felt stretch forth in him a new will which was not his own, under which the other, the will to sin, struggled. It was like the approach of an invisible being whose contact overcame him with an anguish which was full of pleasure. This being wanted to open out within him, but the weight of his old sins prevented. Then his soul cried out in pain.

In those moments, what a relief it was to let himself float on the canticles of the Church! The liturgical chants were then something new in the West. It was in the very year we are dealing with that St. Ambrose started the custom in the Milanese basilicas.

The childhood of our hymns! One cannot think about that without being moved. One envies Augustin for having heard them in their spring freshness. These lovely musics, which were to sound during so many centuries, and still soar against the vaults of cathedrals, were leaving the nest for the first time. We cannot think that a day will come when they will fold their wings and fall silent. Since human bodies, temples of the Holy Ghost, will live again in glory, one would like to believe with Dante that the hymns, temples of the Word, are likewise immortal, and that they will still be heard in the everlasting. Doubtless in the twilight glens of Purgatory the bewailing souls continue to sing the _Te lucis ante terminum_, even as in the star-circles, where the Blessed move ever, will always leap up the triumphant notes of the _Magnificat_....

Even on those who have lost the faith, the power of these hymns is irresistible. "If you knew," said Renan, "the charm that the Barbarian magicians knew how to put into their canticles. When I remember them, my heart melts." The heart of Augustin, who had not yet the faith, melted too in hearing them: "How I have cried, my God, over the hymns and canticles when the sweet sound of the music of Thy Church thrilled my soul! As the music flowed into my ears, and Thy truth trickled into my heart, the tide of devotion swelled high within me, and the tears ran down, and there was gladness in those tears." His heart cast off its heaviness, while his mind was shaken by the heavenly music. Augustin loved music passionately. At this time he conceived God as the Great Musician of the spheres; and soon he will write that "we are a strophe in a poem." At the same time, the vivid and lightning figures of the Psalms, sweeping over the insipid metaphors of the rhetoric which encumbered his memory, awoke in the depths of him his wild African imagination and sent him soaring. And then the affectionate note, the plaint in those sacred songs: _Deus, Deus meus!_--"O God! O _my_ God!" The Divinity was no longer a cold abstraction, a phantom that withdrew into an unapproachable infinite; He became the actual possession of the loving soul. He leant over His poor scarred creature, took him in His arms, and comforted him like a kind father.

Augustin wept with tenderness and ecstasy, but also with despair. He wept upon himself. He saw that he had not the courage to be happy with the only possible happiness. What, indeed, was he seeking, unless it were to capture this "blessed life" which he had pursued so long? What he had tried to get out of all his loves was the complete gift of his soul--to realize himself completely. Now, this completeness of self is only in God--_in Deo salutari meo_. The souls we have wounded are in unison with us, and with themselves, only in God.... And the sweet Christian symbolism invited him with its most enticing images: the Shades of Paradise; the Fountain of Living Water; the Repose in the Lord God; the green Branch of the Dove, harbinger of peace.... But the passions still resisted. "To-morrow! Wait a little yet! Shall we be no more with you, for ever? _Non erimus tecum ultra in aeternum?_..." What a dismal sound in these syllables, and how terrifying for a timid soul! They fell, heavy as bronze, on the soul of Augustin.

An end had to be put to it somehow. What was needed was some one who would force him out of his indecision. Instinctively, led by that mysterious will which he felt had arisen within him, he went to see, and consult in his distress, an old priest named Simplicianus, who had converted or directed Bishop Ambrose in his young days. No doubt Augustin spoke to him of what he had lately been reading, and particularly of his Platonist studies, and of all the efforts he made to enter the communion of Christ. He acknowledged that he was convinced, but he could not bend to the practice of the Christian life. Then, very skilfully, as one artful in differentiating souls, perceiving that vanity was not yet dead in Augustin, Simplicianus offered him as an example the very translator of those Platonic books which he had just been reading so enthusiastically--that famous Victorinus Afer, that orator so learned and admired, who had his statue in the Roman Forum. Because of some remains of philosophical pride, and also from fear of offending his friends among the Roman aristocracy, who were still almost altogether pagan, Victorinus was a Christian only in his head. In vain Simplicianus pointed out to him how illogical his conduct was. But suddenly and unexpectedly he decided. The day of the baptism of the catechumens, this celebrated man mounted the platform set up in the basilica for the profession of faith of the newly converted, and there, like the meanest of the faithful, he delivered his profession before all the assembled people. That was a dramatic stroke. The crowd, jubilant over this fine performance, cheered the neophyte. And on all sides they shouted: "Victorinus! Victorinus!"

Augustin listened to this little story, whereof all the details were so happily chosen to act on an imagination like his:--the statue in the Roman Forum; the platform from the height of which the orator had spoken a language so new and unexpected; the exulting shouts of the crowd: "Victorinus! Victorinus!" Already he saw himself in the same position. There he was in the basilica, on the platform, in presence of Bishop Ambrose; he too repeated his profession of faith, and the people of Milan clapped their hands--"Augustin! Augustin!" But can a humble and contrite heart thus take pleasure in human adulation? If Augustin did become a convert, it would be entirely for God and before God. Very quickly he put aside the temptation.... Nevertheless, this example, coming from so exalted a man, made a very deep and beneficial impression. He looked upon it as a providential sign, a lesson in courage which concerned him personally.

Some time after that, he received a visit from a fellow-countryman, a certain Pontitianus, who had a high position in the Imperial household. Augustin happened to be alone in the house with his friend Alypius. They sat down to talk, and by chance the visitor noticed the Epistles of St. Paul lying on a table for playing games. This started the conversation. Pontitianus, who was a Christian, praised the ascetic life, and especially the wonders of holiness wrought by Antony and his companions in the Egyptian deserts. This subject was in the air. In Catholic circles at Rome, they spoke of little else than these Egyptian solitaries, and of the number, growing larger and larger, of those who stripped themselves of their worldly goods to live in utter renunciation. What was the good of keeping these worldly goods, that the avarice of Government taxation confiscated so easily, and that the Barbarians watched covetously from afar! The brutes who came down from Germany would get hold of them sooner or later. And even supposing one might save them, retain an ever-uncertain enjoyment of them, was the life of the time really worth the trouble of living? There was nothing more to hope for the Empire. The hour of the great desolation was at hand....

Pontitianus, observing the effect of his words on his hearers, was led to tell them a quite private adventure of his own. He was at Trèves, in attendance on the Court. Well, one afternoon while the Emperor was at the circus, he and three of his friends, like himself attached to the household, went for a stroll beyond the city walls. Two of them parted from the others and went off into the country, and there they came upon a hut where dwelt certain hermits. They went in, and found a book--_The Life of St. Antony_. They read in it; and for them that was a conversion thunder-striking, instantaneous. The two courtiers resolved to join the solitaries there and then, and they never went back to the Palace. And they were betrothed!...

The tone of Pontitianus as he recalled this conscience-drama which he had witnessed, betrayed a strange emotion which gradually took hold of Augustin. His guest's words resounded in him like the blows of a clapper in a bell. He saw himself in the two courtiers of Trèves. He too was tired of the world, he too was betrothed. Was he going to do as the Emperor--remain in the circus taken up with idle pleasures, while others took the road to the sole happiness?

When Pontitianus was gone, Augustin was in a desperate state. The repentant soul of the two courtiers had passed into his. His will uprose in grievous conflict and tortured itself. He seized Alypius roughly by the arm and cried out to him in extraordinary excitement:

"What are we about? Yes, I say, what are we about? Did you not hear? Simple men arise and take Heaven by violence, and we with all our heartless learning--look how we are wallowing in flesh and blood!"

Alypius stared at him, stupefied. "The truth is," adds Augustin, "that I scarcely knew what I said. My face, my eyes, my colour, and the change in my voice expressed my meaning much better than my words." If he guessed from this upheaval of his whole frame how close at hand was the heavenly visitation, all he felt at the moment was a great need to weep, and he wanted solitude to weep freely. He went down into the garden. Alypius, feeling uneasy, followed at a distance, and in silence sat down beside him on the bench where he had paused. Augustin did not even notice that his friend was there. His agony of spirit began again. All his faults, all his old stains came once more to his mind, and he grew furious against his cowardly feebleness as he felt how much he still clung to them. Oh, to tear himself free from all these miseries--to finish with them once for all!... Suddenly he sprang up. It was as if a gust of the tempest had struck him. He rushed to the end of the garden, flung himself on his knees under a fig-tree, and with his forehead pressed against the earth he burst into tears. Even as the olive-tree at Jerusalem which sheltered the last watch of the Divine Master, the fig-tree of Milan saw fall upon its roots a sweat of blood. Augustin, breathless in the victorious embrace of Grace, panted: "How long, how long?... To-morrow and to-morrow?... Why not now? Why not this hour make an end of my vileness?..."

Now, at this very moment a child's voice from the neighbouring house began repeating in a kind of chant: "_Take and read, take and read_." Augustin shuddered. What was this refrain? Was it a nursery-rhyme that the little children of the countryside used to sing? He could not recollect it; he had never heard it before.... Immediately, as upon a divine command, he rose to his feet and ran back to the place where Alypius was sitting, for he had left St. Paul's Epistles lying there. He opened the book, and the passage on which his eyes first fell was this: _Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof_.... The flesh!... The sacred text aimed at him directly--at him, Augustin, still so full of lust! This command was the answer from on high....

He put his finger between the leaves, closed the volume. His frenzy had passed away. A great peace was shed upon him--it was all over. With a calm face he told Alypius what had happened, and without lingering he went into Monnica's room to tell her also. The Saint was not surprised. It was long now since she had been told, "Where I am, there shalt thou be also." But she gave way to an outburst of joy. Her mission was done. Now she might sing her canticle of thanksgiving and enter into God's peace.

Meanwhile, the good Alypius, always circumspect and practical, had opened the book again and shewn his friend what followed the verse, for Augustin, in his excitement, had neglected to read further. The Apostle said, "_Him that is weak in the faith receive ye_." This also applied to Augustin. That was only too certain: his new faith was still very unsteady. Let not presumption blind him! Yes, no doubt with all his soul he desired to be a Christian. It now remained for him to become one.

THE FOURTH PART

THE HIDDEN LIFE

Fac me, Pater, quaerere te. "Cause me to seek Thee, O my Father."

_Soliloquies_, I, i.

I

THE LAST SMILE OF THE MUSE

Now that Augustin had been at last touched by grace, was he after all going to make a sensational conversion like his professional brother, the celebrated Victorinus?

He knew well enough that there is a good example set by these noisy conversions which works on a vast number of people. And however "contrite and humble" his heart might be, he was quite aware that in Milan he was an important personage. What excitement, if he were to resign his professorship on the ground that he wished to spend the rest of his life in the ascetic way of the Christians!... But he preferred to avoid the scandal on one side, and the loud praise on the other. God alone and some very dear friends should witness his repentance.

There were now hardly twenty days before the vacation. He would be patient till then. Thus, the parents of his pupils would not have any ground to reproach him for leaving them before the end of term, and as his health was getting worse, he would have a good excuse to give up his post. The dampness of the climate had given him a sort of chronic bronchitis which the summer had not cured. He had difficulty in breathing; his voice was muffled and thin--so much so, that he began to think his lungs were attacked. Augustin's health really needed care. This was a quite good enough reason to interrupt his lectures. Having fulfilled his professional duties to the very end--and he assures us that it took some courage--he left the professorial chair with the declared intention of never occupying it again.

Here, then, he is free from all worldly ties. From now on he can prepare himself for baptism in silence and retreat. But still he must live somehow! Augustin had more souls depending on him than ever: his son, his mother, his brother, his cousins--a heavy burthen which he had been struggling under for a long time. It is probable that once more Romanianus, who was still in Milan, came to his assistance. It will be remembered that the Mæcenas of Thagaste had taken up warmly the plan of a lay monastery which Augustin and his friends had lost their heads over, and he had promised to subscribe a large sum. Augustin's retreat was a first step towards realizing this plan in a new shape. Romanianus, no doubt, approved of it. In any case, he asked Augustin to keep on giving lessons to his son Licentius. Another young man, Trygetius, begged for the same favour. Augustin therefore did not intend to give up his employment altogether. He had changed, for the present at least, from a Government professor into a private one.

This meant that he had a certain living. All he wanted now was a shelter. A friend, a colleague, the grammarian Verecundus, graciously offered him this. Verecundus thus repaid a favour which Augustin had quite recently done him. It was at Augustin's request that Nebridius, who was a friend of both, agreed to take over the classes of the grammarian, who was obliged to go away. Although rich, full of talent, and very eager for peace and solitude, Nebridius, simply out of good-nature, was willing to take the place of Verecundus in his very modest employment. One cannot too much admire the generosity and kindliness of these ancient and Christian manners. In those days, friendship knew nothing of our narrow and shabby egoisms.

Now Verecundus owned a country house just outside Milan, at Cassicium. He suggested to Augustin to spend the vacation there, and even to live there permanently with all his people, on condition of looking after the property and keeping it up.

Attempts have been made to find traces of this hospitable dwelling where the future monk of Thagaste and Hippo bade farewell to the world. Cassicium has disappeared. The imagination is free to rebuild it fancifully in any part of the rich country which lies about Milan. Still, if the youthful Licentius has not yielded too much to metaphor in the verses wherein he recalls to Augustin "Departed suns among Italian mountain-heights," it is likely that the estate of Verecundus lay upon those first mountain-slopes which roll into the Brianza range. Even to-day, the rich Milanese have their country houses among those hills.

To Augustin and his companions this flourishing Lombardy must have seemed another promised land. The country, wonderfully fertile and cultivated, is one orchard, where fruit trees cluster, and, in all ways, deep streams wind, slow-flowing and stocked with fish. Everywhere is the tremor of running water--inconceivably fresh music for African ears. A scent of mint and aniseed; fields with grass growing high and straight in which you plunge up to the knees. Here and there, deeply engulfed little valleys with their bunches of green covert, slashed with the rose plumes of the lime trees and the burnished leaves of the hazels, and where already the northern firs lift their black needles. Far off, blended in one violet mass, the Alps, peak upon peak, covered with snow; and nearer in view, sheer cliffs, jutting fastnesses, ploughed through with black gorges which make flare out plainer the bronze-gold of their slopes. Not far off, the enchanted lakes slumber. It seems that an emblazonment fluctuates from their waters, and writhing above the crags which imprison them drifts athwart a sky sometimes a little chill--Leonardo's pensive sky of shadowed amethyst--again of a flushed blue, whereupon float great clouds, silken and ruddy, as in the backgrounds of Veronese's pictures. The beauty of the light lightens and beautifies the over-heavy opulence of the land.

And wherever the country house of Verecundus may be placed, some bit of this triumphal landscape will be found. As for the house itself, Augustin has said enough about it for us to see it fairly well. It was no doubt one of those old rustic buildings, inhabited only some few months of the year, in the warmest season, and for the rest of the time given over to the frolics of mice and rats. Without any pretence to architectural form, it had been enlarged and renovated simply for the greater convenience of those who lived there. There was no attempt at symmetry; the main door was not in the middle of the building, and there was another door on one of the sides. The sole luxury of this country house was perhaps the bath-houses. These baths, however simple they might be, nevertheless reminded Augustin of the decoration of gymnasiums. Does this mean that he found there rich pavements, mosaics, and statues? These were quite usual things in Roman villas. The Italians have always had, at all periods, a great fondness for statues and mosaics. Not very particular about the quality, they made up for it by the quantity. And when they could not treat themselves to the real thing, it was good enough to give themselves the make-believe in painting. I can imagine easily enough Verecundus' house, painted in fresco from top to bottom, inside and out, like those houses at Pompeii, or the modern Milanese villas.