IV
PLANS OF MARRIAGE
But even as he draws nearer the goal, Augustin would appear, on the contrary, to get farther away from it. Such are God's secret paces, Who snatches souls like a thief: He drops on them without warning. Till the very eve of the day when Christ shall come to take him, Augustin will be all taken up with the world and the care of making a good figure in it.
Although Ambrose's sermons stimulated him to reflect upon the great historical reality which Christianity is, he had as yet but dim glimpses of it. He had given up his superficial unbelief, and yet did not believe in anything definite. He drifted into a sort of agnosticism compounded of mental indolence and discouragement. When he scrutinized his conscience to the depths, the most he could find was a belief in the existence of God and His providence—quite abstract ideas which he was incapable of enlivening. But whatever was the use of speculating upon Truth and the Sovereign Good! The main thing to do was to live.
Now that his future was certain, Augustin endeavoured to arrange his life with a view to his tranquillity. He had no longer very large ambitions. What he principally wanted to do was to create for himself a nice little existence, peaceful and agreeable, one might almost say, middle-class. His present fortune, although small, was still enough for that, and he was in a hurry to enjoy it.
Accordingly, he had not been long in Milan ere he sent for his mistress and his son. He had rented an apartment in a house which gave on a garden. The owner, who did not live there, allowed him the use of the whole house. A house, the dream of the sage! And a garden in Virgil's country! Augustin, the professor, should have been wonderfully happy. His mother soon joined him. Gradually a whole tribe of Africans came down on him, and took advantage of his hospitality. Here was his brother, Navigius, his two cousins, Rusticus and Lastidianus, his friend Alypius, who could not make up his mind to part from him, and probably Nebridius, another of his Carthage friends. Nothing could be more in harmony with the customs of the time. The Rhetorician to the City of Milan had a post which would pass for superb in the eyes of his poor relations. He was acquainted with very important people, and had access to the Imperial Court, whence favours and bounties came. Immediately, the family ran to put themselves under his protection and be enrolled beneficiaries, to get what they could out of his new fortune and credit. And then these immigrations of Africans and Orientals into the northern countries always come about in the same way. It is enough if one of them gets on there: he becomes immediately the drop of ink on the blotting-paper.
The most important person in this little African phalanstery was unquestionably Monnica, who had taken in hand the moral and material control of the house. She was not very old—not quite fifty-four—but she wanted to be in her own country. That she should have left it, and faced the weariness of a long journey over sea and land, she must have had very serious reasons. The poverty into which she had fallen since the death of her husband would not be an adequate explanation of her departure from her native land. She had still some small property at Thagaste; she could have lived there. The true motives of her departure were of an altogether different order. First of all, she passionately loved her son, to the point that she was not able to live away from him. Let us recall Augustin's touching words: "For she loved to keep me with her, as mothers are wont, yes, far more than most mothers." Besides that, she wanted to save him. She completely believed that this was her work in the world.
Beginning from now, she is no longer the widow of Patricius: she is already Saint Monnica. Living like a nun, she fasted, prayed, mortified her body. By long meditating on the Scriptures, she had developed within her the sense of spiritual realities, so that before long she astonished Augustin himself. She had visions; perhaps she had trances. As she came over the sea from Carthage to Ostia, the ship which carried her ran into a wild gale. The danger became extreme, and the sailors themselves could no longer hide their fear. But Monnica intrepidly encouraged them. "Never you fear, we shall arrive in port safe and sound!" God, she declared, had promised her this.
If, in her Christian life, she knew other minutes more divine, that was truly the most heroic. Across Augustin's calm narrative, we witness the scene. This woman lying on the deck among passengers half dead from fatigue and terror, suddenly flings back her veils, stands up before the maddened sea, and with a sudden flame gleaming over her pale face, she cries to the sailors: "What do you fear? We shall get to port. I am sure of it!" The glorious act of faith!
At this solemn moment, when she saw death so near, she had a clear revelation of her destiny; she knew with absolute certainty that she was entrusted with a message for her son, and that her son would receive this message, in spite of all, in spite of the wildness of the sea—aye, in spite of his own heart.