"'Do you wish to see his Royal Highness the King of Earth and Heaven?' Thinking she was some stupid moujik's wife, I nodded my head seriously, though amused by the exalted titles. She put up a thin hand and I tiptoed to a cradle of gold and ivory—it certainly seemed so to my inexperienced eyes—the nurse parted the curtains, and there I saw—I saw—but my son, you will think I exaggerate—I saw the most exquisite baby in the universe. You laugh at an old bachelor's rhapsody! In reality I don't care much for children. But that child, that supreme morsel of humanity, was too much for me. I stood and stared and stood and stared, and all the while the tiny angel was smiling in my eyes, oh! such a celestial smile. From his large blue eyes, like flowers, he smiled into my very soul. I was chained to the floor as if by lead. Every fibre of my soul, heart, and brain went out to that little wanderer from the infinite. It was a pathetic face, full of suppressed sorrow—Dieu! but he was older than his father. I found my mind beginning to wander as if hypnotized. I tried to divert my gaze, but in vain. Some subtle emanation from this extraordinary child entered my being, and then, as if a curtain were being slowly lowered, a mist encompassed my soul; I was ceding, I felt, the immortal part of me to another, and all the time I was smiling at the baby and the baby smiling back. I remember his long blond hair, parted in the middle and falling over his shoulders; but even that remarkable trait for an infant a few hours old did not puzzle me, for my sanity was surely being undermined by the persistent gaze of the boy. I vaguely recall passing my hand across my breast as if to stop the crevice through which my personality was filtering; I was certain that my soul was about to be stolen by that damnable child. Then the nurse dropped something, and my thoughts came back,—they were surely on the road to hell, for they were red and flaming when I got hold of them,—and the spell, or whatever it was, snapped.
"I looked up and noticed the woman maliciously smiling—if it had been in the days of the inquisition, I would have sent her to the faggots, for she was a hell-hag. The child had fallen back in his cradle as if the effort of holding my attention had exhausted him. Then it struck me that there was something unholy about this affair, and I resolutely strode to the crib and seized the baby.
"'What changeling is this?' I demanded in a loud voice, for the being that twisted in my grip was two or two hundred years old.
"'Lay him down, you monster!' clamoured the nurse, as I held the squirming bundle by both hands. It was a task—and I'm very strong. A superhuman strength waged against my muscles; but I was an old football half-back at the university, so I conquered the poor little devil. It moaned like a querulous old man; the nurse, throwing her weight upon me, forced me to let go my hold. As I did so the baby turned on its face, its dainty robe split wide open, and to my horror I saw on its back, between its angelically white shoulders, burnt in as if by branding irons, the crucifix—and upside down!"
I shuddered. I knew. He lowered his voice and spoke in detached phrases.
"It was—oh! that I live to say it—it was the dreaded Antichrist—yes, this Russian baby—it was predicted that he would be born in Russia—I trembled so that my robes waved in an invisible wind. The reversed cross—the mark of the beast—the sign by which we are to know the Human Satan—the last opponent of Christianity. I confess that I was discomposed at the sight of this little fiend, for it meant that the red star, the baleful star of the north, would rise in the black heavens and bloody war spread among the nations of the earth. It also meant that doomsday was not far off, and, good Christian as I believe myself to be, a shiver ran down my spine at the idea of Gabriel's trump and the resurrection of the dead. Yes, I shan't deny it—so material are the sons of men, I among them! And the very thought of Judgment Day and its blasting horrors withered my heart. Still something had to be done, prophecy or no prophecy. To fulfil the letter of the law this infernal visitor was let loose from hell. There was one way, so I grasped—"
"Great God, Monsignor, you didn't strangle the demon?" I cried.
"No, no—something better. I rushed over to a marble wash-basin and seized a ewer of water, and, going back to the crib, despite the frantic remonstrances of the old sorceress, I baptized the Antichrist in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Before my eyes I saw the inverted cross vanish. Then I soundly spanked the presumptuous youngster and, running down the staircase, I sought the prince and said to him:—
"'Your boy is now a Roman, not a Greek Catholic. We are quits!'"
The idea of a spanked Antichrist disconsolately roaming the earth, unwilling to return to his fiery home for fear of a scolding, his guns of evil spiked, his virus innocuous, his mission of spiritual destruction a failure—for what could a baptized devil's child do but pray and repent?—all this dawned upon me, and I burst into laughter, the worthy Monsignor discreetly participating. His bizarre recital proved to me that, despite his Gallic first name, Monsignor Anatole O'Bourke hailed from the County Tipperary.