Of Human Bondage (22 page)

  "Oh, I don't know; everyone knows what it is."

  "Are you a gentleman?"

  No doubt had ever crossed Philip's mind on the
subject, but he knew it was not a thing to state of oneself.

  "If a man tells you he's a gentleman you can bet
your boots he isn't," he retorted.

  "Am I a gentleman?"

  Philip's truthfulness made it difficult for him to
answer, but he was naturally polite.

  "Oh, well, you're different," he said. "You're
American, aren't you?"

  "I suppose we may take it that only Englishmen are
gentlemen," said Weeks gravely.

  Philip did not contradict him.

  "Couldn't you give me a few more particulars?" asked
Weeks.

  Philip reddened, but, growing angry, did not care if
he made himself ridiculous.

  "I can give you plenty" He remembered his uncle's
saying that it took three generations to make a gentleman: it was a
companion proverb to the silk purse and the sow's ear. "First of
all he's the son of a gentleman, and he's been to a public school,
and to Oxford or Cambridge."

  "Edinburgh wouldn't do, I suppose?" asked Weeks.

  "And he talks English like a gentleman, and he wears
the right sort of things, and if he's a gentleman he can always
tell if another chap's a gentleman."

  It seemed rather lame to Philip as he went on, but
there it was: that was what he meant by the word, and everyone he
had ever known had meant that too.

  "It is evident to me that I am not a gentleman,"
said Weeks. "I don't see why you should have been so surprised
because I was a dissenter."

  "I don't quite know what a Unitarian is," said
Philip.

  Weeks in his odd way again put his head on one side:
you almost expected him to twitter.

  "A Unitarian very earnestly disbelieves in almost
everything that anybody else believes, and he has a very lively
sustaining faith in he doesn't quite know what."

  "I don't see why you should make fun of me," said
Philip. "I really want to know."

  "My dear friend, I'm not making fun of you. I have
arrived at that definition after years of great labour and the most
anxious, nerve-racking study."

  When Philip and Hayward got up to go, Weeks handed
Philip a little book in a paper cover.

  "I suppose you can read French pretty well by now. I
wonder if this would amuse you."

  Philip thanked him and, taking the book, looked at
the title. It was Renan's Vie de Jesus.

  It occurred neither to Hayward nor to Weeks that the
conversations which helped them to pass an idle evening were being
turned over afterwards in Philip's active brain. It had never
struck him before that religion was a matter upon which discussion
was possible. To him it meant the Church of England, and not to
believe in its tenets was a sign of wilfulness which could not fail
of punishment here or hereafter. There was some doubt in his mind
about the chastisement of unbelievers. It was possible that a
merciful judge, reserving the flames of hell for the heathen –
Mahommedans, Buddhists, and the rest – would spare Dissenters and
Roman Catholics (though at the cost of how much humiliation when
they were made to realise their error!), and it was also possible
that He would be pitiful to those who had had no chance of learning
the truth, – this was reasonable enough, though such were the
activities of the Missionary Society there could not be many in
this condition – but if the chance had been theirs and they had
neglected it (in which category were obviously Roman Catholics and
Dissenters), the punishment was sure and merited. It was clear that
the miscreant was in a parlous state. Perhaps Philip had not been
taught it in so many words, but certainly the impression had been
given him that only members of the Church of England had any real
hope of eternal happiness.

  One of the things that Philip had heard definitely
stated was that the unbeliever was a wicked and a vicious man; but
Weeks, though he believed in hardly anything that Philip believed,
led a life of Christian purity. Philip had received little kindness
in his life, and he was touched by the American's desire to help
him: once when a cold kept him in bed for three days, Weeks nursed
him like a mother. There was neither vice nor wickedness in him,
but only sincerity and loving-kindness. It was evidently possible
to be virtuous and unbelieving.

  Also Philip had been given to understand that people
adhered to other faiths only from obstinacy or self-interest: in
their hearts they knew they were false; they deliberately sought to
deceive others. Now, for the sake of his German he had been
accustomed on Sunday mornings to attend the Lutheran service, but
when Hayward arrived he began instead to go with him to Mass. He
noticed that, whereas the Protestant church was nearly empty and
the congregation had a listless air, the Jesuit on the other hand
was crowded and the worshippers seemed to pray with all their
hearts. They had not the look of hypocrites. He was surprised at
the contrast; for he knew of course that the Lutherans, whose faith
was closer to that of the Church of England, on that account were
nearer the truth than the Roman Catholics. Most of the men – it was
largely a masculine congregation – were South Germans; and he could
not help saying to himself that if he had been born in South
Germany he would certainly have been a Roman Catholic. He might
just as well have been born in a Roman Catholic country as in
England; and in England as well in a Wesleyan, Baptist, or
Methodist family as in one that fortunately belonged to the church
by law established. He was a little breathless at the danger he had
run. Philip was on friendly terms with the little Chinaman who sat
at table with him twice each day. His name was Sung. He was always
smiling, affable, and polite. It seemed strange that he should
frizzle in hell merely because he was a Chinaman; but if salvation
was possible whatever a man's faith was, there did not seem to be
any particular advantage in belonging to the Church of England.

  Philip, more puzzled than he had ever been in his
life, sounded Weeks. He had to be careful, for he was very
sensitive to ridicule; and the acidulous humour with which the
American treated the Church of England disconcerted him. Weeks only
puzzled him more. He made Philip acknowledge that those South
Germans whom he saw in the Jesuit church were every bit as firmly
convinced of the truth of Roman Catholicism as he was of that of
the Church of England, and from that he led him to admit that the
Mahommedan and the Buddhist were convinced also of the truth of
their respective religions. It looked as though knowing that you
were right meant nothing; they all knew they were right. Weeks had
no intention of undermining the boy's faith, but he was deeply
interested in religion, and found it an absorbing topic of
conversation. He had described his own views accurately when he
said that he very earnestly disbelieved in almost everything that
other people believed. Once Philip asked him a question, which he
had heard his uncle put when the conversation at the vicarage had
fallen upon some mildly rationalistic work which was then exciting
discussion in the newspapers.

  "But why should you be right and all those fellows
like St. Anselm and St. Augustine be wrong?"

  "You mean that they were very clever and learned
men, while you have grave doubts whether I am either?" asked
Weeks.

  "Yes," answered Philip uncertainly, for put in that
way his question seemed impertinent.

  "St. Augustine believed that the earth was flat and
that the sun turned round it."

  "I don't know what that proves."

  "Why, it proves that you believe with your
generation. Your saints lived in an age of faith, when it was
practically impossible to disbelieve what to us is positively
incredible."

  "Then how d'you know that we have the truth
now?"

  "I don't."

  Philip thought this over for a moment, then he
said:

  "I don't see why the things we believe absolutely
now shouldn't be just as wrong as what they believed in the
past."

  "Neither do I."

  "Then how can you believe anything at all?"

  "I don't know."

  Philip asked Weeks what he thought of Hayward's
religion.

  "Men have always formed gods in their own image,"
said Weeks. "He believes in the picturesque."

  Philip paused for a little while, then he said:

  "I don't see why one should believe in God at
all."

  The words were no sooner out of his mouth than he
realised that he had ceased to do so. It took his breath away like
a plunge into cold water. He looked at Weeks with startled eyes.
Suddenly he felt afraid. He left Weeks as quickly as he could. He
wanted to be alone. It was the most startling experience that he
had ever had. He tried to think it all out; it was very exciting,
since his whole life seemed concerned (he thought his decision on
this matter must profoundly affect its course) and a mistake might
lead to eternal damnation; but the more he reflected the more
convinced he was; and though during the next few weeks he read
books, aids to scepticism, with eager interest it was only to
confirm him in what he felt instinctively. The fact was that he had
ceased to believe not for this reason or the other, but because he
had not the religious temperament. Faith had been forced upon him
from the outside. It was a matter of environment and example. A new
environment and a new example gave him the opportunity to find
himself. He put off the faith of his childhood quite simply, like a
cloak that he no longer needed. At first life seemed strange and
lonely without the belief which, though he never realised it, had
been an unfailing support. He felt like a man who has leaned on a
stick and finds himself forced suddenly to walk without assistance.
It really seemed as though the days were colder and the nights more
solitary. But he was upheld by the excitement; it seemed to make
life a more thrilling adventure; and in a little while the stick
which he had thrown aside, the cloak which had fallen from his
shoulders, seemed an intolerable burden of which he had been eased.
The religious exercises which for so many years had been forced
upon him were part and parcel of religion to him. He thought of the
collects and epistles which he had been made to learn by heart, and
the long services at the Cathedral through which he had sat when
every limb itched with the desire for movement; and he remembered
those walks at night through muddy roads to the parish church at
Blackstable, and the coldness of that bleak building; he sat with
his feet like ice, his fingers numb and heavy, and all around was
the sickly odour of pomatum. Oh, he had been so bored! His heart
leaped when he saw he was free from all that.

  He was surprised at himself because he ceased to
believe so easily, and, not knowing that he felt as he did on
account of the subtle workings of his inmost nature, he ascribed
the certainty he had reached to his own cleverness. He was unduly
pleased with himself. With youth's lack of sympathy for an attitude
other than its own he despised not a little Weeks and Hayward
because they were content with the vague emotion which they called
God and would not take the further step which to himself seemed so
obvious. One day he went alone up a certain hill so that he might
see a view which, he knew not why, filled him always with wild
exhilaration. It was autumn now, but often the days were cloudless
still, and then the sky seemed to glow with a more splendid light:
it was as though nature consciously sought to put a fuller
vehemence into the remaining days of fair weather. He looked down
upon the plain, a-quiver with the sun, stretching vastly before
him: in the distance were the roofs of Mannheim and ever so far
away the dimness of Worms. Here and there a more piercing glitter
was the Rhine. The tremendous spaciousness of it was glowing with
rich gold. Philip, as he stood there, his heart beating with sheer
joy, thought how the tempter had stood with Jesus on a high
mountain and shown him the kingdoms of the earth. To Philip,
intoxicated with the beauty of the scene, it seemed that it was the
whole world which was spread before him, and he was eager to step
down and enjoy it. He was free from degrading fears and free from
prejudice. He could go his way without the intolerable dread of
hell-fire. Suddenly he realised that he had lost also that burden
of responsibility which made every action of his life a matter of
urgent consequence. He could breathe more freely in a lighter air.
He was responsible only to himself for the things he did. Freedom!
He was his own master at last. From old habit, unconsciously he
thanked God that he no longer believed in Him.