He looked for the button of the electric bell, and not finding it in the blindness of his rage, he shrieked:
“Usher! Usher!”
The Under-Secretary of State, who was used to these scenes—they were nothing worse than “fires of straw,” for the Minister had a heart of gold—at first laughed in his sleeve. When, however, he heard his friend call the usher in that tone, knowing well the indiscretion of ushers and how much dangerous gossip might arise from this incident, reflecting ridicule also on himself, he resolutely restrained the Minister, almost commanding him to calm himself. Then he said sharply to Benedetto:
“Go, at once!” The Minister began to walk up and down the room in silence, his head bowed, with short, hurried steps, struggling to conquer the child in him, which would have liked to stamp its feet.
Benedetto did not obey. Erect and severe, glowing with the invisible rays of a dominating spirit, which kept the Under-Secretary of State at a distance, he forced the other, through this magnetic power, to turn towards him, to stop and to look him in the face.
“Signor Ministro,” he said. “I am about to leave not only this palace, but very soon, I believe, this world also. I shall not see you again; listen to me for the last time. You are not now disposed to receive the Truth; nevertheless, the Truth is at your door, and the hour will come—it is not far distant, for your life is on the wane—when night will fall upon you, upon all your power, all your honours, all your ambitions. Then you will hear Truth calling out in the night. You can answer ‘Begone’—and you will never meet her again. You can answer ‘Enter’—and you will see her appear, veiled, and breathing sweetness through her veil. You do not now know what you will answer, nor do I know, nor does any one in the world. Prepare yourself, by good works, to give the right answer. Whatever your errors may be there is religion in your soul. God has given you much power in this world; use it to good purpose. You who were born a Catholic say you are a Protestant. Perhaps you do not know Catholicism well enough to understand that Protestantism is being shattered upon the dead Christ, while Catholicism evolves by virtue of the living Christ. But now I speak to the statesman, not, indeed, to implore him to protect the Catholic Church, which would be a misfortune, but to tell him that though the State may not be either Catholic or Protestant, neither may it ignore God, and you dare to ignore Him in more than one of your schools, in those you call high, and this in the name of freedom of science, which you confound with freedom of thought and of speech; for thought and speech are free to deny God, but the negation of God neither partakes nor can partake of the nature of science, and you are bound to teach science alone. You are well acquainted with that petty statesmanship which forces you to a private compromise with your conscience, in order to obtain in secret some favour from the Vatican, in which you do not believe, but you are ill acquainted with that grand statesmanship which upholds the authority of Him who is the eternal principle of all justice. You work harder to destroy it than the atheistic professors themselves; for, after all, the atheistic professors have but little power; you statesmen, who sometimes talk of your belief in God, you undermine His authority far more deeply than those professors, by the bad example of your practical atheism. You who imagine you believe in the Godhead of Christ are, in reality, prophets and priests of the false gods. You serve them, as the idolatrous Hebrew princes served them, in high places, in the presence of the people. You serve, in the high places, the gods of all earthly lusts.”
“Bravo!” interrupted the Minister, who was well known for the austerity of his life, his domestic virtues, and his carelessness concerning money. “You amuse me!”
And he added, turning to his friend:
“It was really not worth while.”
“Understand me well!” Benedetto continued. “Yes, you also are one of these priests. Do I then speak of ordinary revellers? I speak of you and of others like you, who esteem yourselves honest men because you do not plunge your hands into the coffers of the State, who esteem yourselves moral men because you do not give yourselves up to the pleasures of the senses. I will tell you two things: All the while you are worshipping pleasures which are still more sinful. You make false gods of yourselves unto yourselves; you worship the pleasure of contemplating yourselves in all your power, in all your honours, in the admiration of the world. To your false gods you wickedly sacrifice many human victims, and the integrity of your own character. There is a compact among you by which each is bound to respect his colleague’s false god, and promote its worship. The purest among you are at least guilty of this complicity. You look away when there is a suggestion of foul conspiracies with vile aims, or of the shameful intrigues of factions which crawl in the dark, letting them go by in silence. You regard yourselves as incorrupt, and you corrupt others! You distribute the public money regularly to people who sell you their honour and the probity of their consciences. You despise and you nurture this infamy, which goes on under the shadow of your authority. It is more sinful to buy votes and flattery than to sell them! You are the most corrupt of all! Your second sin is that you consider lying a necessity of your position; you lie as you would drink water. You lie to the people, lie to the Parliament, lie to the Crown, lie to your adversaries, lie to your friends. I know—some of you do not personally indulge in the general prevarication, but you tolerate it in your colleagues. Many of you shrink from assuming this on entering the seat of government, as, upon entering a mine, we put on a dirty dress to protect our own and, on coming out, lay it down joyfully. But can these, who are the best, call themselves faithful servants of Truth? You believe in God, and perhaps on your death-bed you will believe you have offended God most seriously, as statesmen, by your acts of violence against the Church, in the name of the State. No, these will not be your greatest sins. If men go into Parliament, and through Parliament into the Government, who profess, as philosophers, not to know God, but who rise up in the name of Truth against this arbitrary tyranny of Untruth, they are serving God better than you and will be more pleasing to God than you, who believe in Him as an idol and not as the Spirit of Truth, than you who dare to talk of the putrefaction of Catholicism, you who stink of falsity. Yes, who stink of it! You make the air of the heights so impure, so contrary to what it should be, that it is difficult to breathe it. You have a devout heart, Signor Ministro; do not tell me that in this palace one cannot serve God.”