The Cathedral
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The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924089074847 3 1924 089 074 847 In compliance with current copyright law, Cornell University Library produced this replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48-1992 to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. 2000 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE Joseph Whitmore Barry dramatic library THE GIFT OF TWO FRIENDS OF Cornell University 1934 The Cathedral J.-K. HUYSMANS TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY CLARA BELL AND EDITED WITH A PREFATORY NOTE BY C. KEGAN PAUL Domine, dilexi decorem domus tux et locum habitationis gloriae tuae. Ne perdas cum impiia, Deus, aniinam meam. ... {Psalm xxvi.) Harbor scientij^ NEW YORK NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY 1898 #^m}, /•^ WORKS BY J.=K. HUYSMANS. A Trilogy. EN ROUTE. LA CATHEDRALE. L'OBLAT. [/k preparation. patri, amico, defuncto Gabrieli Ferret presbyt. s. s. MCESTi! FILIUS, AMICUS J.-K. H. PREFATORY NOTE. There are those to whom the characters in good fiction are far more real than the men and women whom we encounter in life : nor is this illusion confined to readers alone; it is shared by authors, who see in the children of their brain many of their own features, as their physical peculiarities are reproduced and at times exaggerated in their succeeding generations. To those who were fascinated by " En Route," Durtal, the hero, became living and true : we rejoice to meet him again, and recognize that his creator takes the same pride in his mental and spiritual development as a parent takes in those of his children, both when they repeat and differ from his own traits. In leaving Durtal at the close of " En Route," he stood at the parting of the ways, and it was uncertain whether he would drift back to his wallowing in the mire, or pursue the steep path of penance and virtue to the end. It is with a relief from tension and of satisfied hope that in " The Cathedral " are no signs of wavering, his change of life continues; he is occasionally wearied with the monotony of a provinciaUtown; but he feels the hand of God is on him, turning his steps towards righteousness, his eyes and thoughts to mediaeval mysticism, to the rapt meditation of the cloister rather than to the more modern Catholicism which is ready to make a pact with the world. Vlll PREFATORY NOTE The dramatis personcs are exclusively, besides himself, two priests, and the housekeeper of one of them, and the scene is the Cathedral of Chartres, in which is built and carved and blazoned the whole of medieval theology in its completest form, with the smallest possible admixture of extraneous teaching. Here Durtal has settled in order that the great cathedral may reveal its secret to him and to us. In the study of the manuscript, of stone and glass alone has been needed any " editing," any " prefatory note." When ill-health convinced me that it was impossible I should continue the work begun by me in the translation of " En Route," I rejoiced that it was to be entrusted to the hands of so able a scholar and so painstaking a student as Mrs. Bell; and I should shrink from criticizing her work. But every branch of learning has its own technical terms, and in the description of Catholic rites knowledge of such technical terms is required. It is therefore solely from the knowledge of these, necessarily possessed by a Catholic, that I have presumed to edit, and sometimes to correct the translator. Probably few French cathedrals are so well known to the of in it is tourist as that Chartres ; yet these days seldom approached as it is best seen. As it gradually grows upon the traveller from the Dreux high-road, it dominates the plain like a great couchant lion, in whose presence all that is smaller is completely extinguished. And just as the edifice dominates the plain, so does the dedication of the cathedral to Our Lady dominate all the accessory doctrines of the Catholic theology embodied in the building. There are two especial objects of devotion. Our Lady of the Crypt, and Our Lady of the Pillar; and these are constantly visited by throngs of worshippers. It will be remembered that whereas on almost all Catholic altars some relic of the PREFATORY NOTE ix saints there commemorated is associated with them for the veneration of the Faithful, in the case of all the altars dedicated to Our Lady such relics are impossible. Two saints under the old dispensation, Enoch and Elijah, and only one under the new, St. Mary, were taken to Heaven in their natural bodies. The tradition of the Church alone explains the words spoken of Enoch, " God took him," in this sense. The Church alone tells us this of St. Mary, and it is by later gifts and miracles, not by relics, that she has stamped her especial presence in so many spots on earth. Thus the worship is that which is enshrined in the whole Cathedral of Chartres more especially than in any other building in France. There is a peculiar appropriateness in selecting this greatest of all French cathedrals as the exponent of mediaeval theology. In Italy the Gothic style has never so completely taken the ascendant, but still shows in its buildings the forms of pre-Christian temples, or of Renascence art, when mediaevalism was giving way. In Spain the great cathedrals are less known ; in England, and to a less extent in Germany, the outward signs of medievalism have been swept away by the adaptation of the buildings to a later worship. But, beginning with La Beauce and through the whole of Burgundy, the stained glass of the cathedrals, the sculptured portals, the cruciform construction of the churches, set forth the whole Catholic interpretation of Christian doctrine in much the same way. In entering one of these churches, and especially in entering the Cathedral of Chartres, the windows catch the earliest attention. Beginning with these, we are directed first to the mystical meaning of colours, thence to the mystical meaning of sculpture and of architecture. X PREFATORY NOTE Therefore the book resolves itself into a series of dis- sertations on the Bestiary of Holy Scripture, on church painting, on early pictures, on the more mystical and suffering saints of the Middle Ages, and on such parts of the flora and fauna as have shown themselves most adapted to church decoration. And although an increasing study of mysticism is to be traced among ourselves, in art, in poetry, in music, in the reaction against what has been called the higher criticism, it may be admitted that the whole tone of" The Cathedral " is " still less English than that of En Route" : none of those ques- tions which are burning among ourselves are even touched in the book. Speaking broadly, the strife between Durtal and the Catholic religion is the struggle between vice and virtue, not between two different modes of serving God. There are, indeed, French Protestants, but their theology is, in fact. Unitarian ; and has no more to do with the life of the French nation than that small community of Protestant Dissenters has to do with our own religious life. The general view of the matter may be summed up in the words of an hotel-keeper in a Burgundian town—" Ah, sir, I hope you are not Protestant : there are only three Protes- tants in this town, and they are all persons of indifferent lives." If the Church in England is to make converts, it will not be by schemes of " corporate reunion," nor even by the adhesion of many units who are in doubt as to the validity of Anglican Orders, but by the discovery made by men that they can best " live the life " through Catholicism, and under the teaching of a living voice. Such see in themselves or in those they are placed to guide, that the only real claimant for authority is the Roman Church, and then most firm and complete in her teaching in the PREFATORY NOTE xi Middle Ages. The sole argument in this country against her demands which affects some of the higher minds among us is the late Dean Church's " Spartam nactuses, hanc exorna." I venture to paraphrase this, " Would that I had been born an Athenian ; but since I was not, but in a poor, mean and despised city, severed from the great Commonweal of Greece, cut off from her glories, I must make the best of it, and do the best with and for that wherein I am." Happy they who, turning like Durtal from the husks which the swine did eat, find no cold German Protestantism sprung . from Luther, no Edwardian or Elizabethan com- promise, but an unsullied series of grand cathedrals, the greatest of them under Our Lady's patronage, leading the prodigal in the way of peace. I believe that the teaching of "The Cathedral " will be found to fall in with the moods of many in these days, who see, in its mystic side, that aspect of Catholicism which appeals most to them, and sympathize with its criticism of the primitive painters and early writers. The saints who helped Durtal at his new start meet us again here, Saint Theresa, Saint Lidwine, Saint Maria d'Agreda, and we are led through their courts to their Queen, the " Pattern of Seraphs, only worthy Ark To bear Her God athwart the floods of time." We part from him as he leaves Chartres to become an oblate at the Benedictine Abbey of Solesmes, with the prayer, which concludes the book, as if, indeed, he were a personal friend of our own : " Pray for him ; Our Lady of the Pillar ; Virgin of the Crypt." C.