there was no longer any danger of my going ahead with the comedy of my ordination.
Lying in bed, I made a great decision to turn my back on Christianity altogether and take up Buddhism. At that moment of decision I had the sense of Christ close by me. His outline was faintly visible in the dark, and he seemed unhappy at losing me. I regained at least my half faith.
I had been reading an interesting Jewish book on Christ. It compared Christ’s career with that of anearlier Jew called Mouskie. Mouskie had come to a very similar end. Jesus knew Mouskie’s story and therefore he saw the likelihood that he would die in the same way. Mouskie too had foreseen his end, but his knowledge had been based on the Prophecies while Jesus’s foresight was based on the history of Mouskie, which seemed to make Mouskie the greater figure.
Another interesting feature in the book dealt with the story of Nicodemus. He took refuge up a tree and refused to come down because he was afraid to speak to Jesus, since he saw that Jesus was guarded by two ‘rough Galileans’.
A new Order was being formed in the Church by a group of priests who were giving an exaggerated importance to Saint Paul, almost a priority over Christ. A symbol of the Order, which could be bought in shops selling pious objects, was a bust in china of Saint Paul with three arms, and heads growing out of his arms. I think the Order flourished best in Spain.
A reaction against the Order was being led by a priest I know, who had written a book criticizing it. Late one night he was rung up on the telephone bysomeone needing an urgent confession: a rendezvous was agreed to at a church on the other side of town. He set out but slowly became suspicious. Was he being followed? He turned and went back.
On returning, he found the street in which he lived ablaze—not only his house but the houses of four other priests who had opposed the new Order.
Archbishop David Mathew, who was an excellent novelist as well as an historian, was a good friend who saved me by his advice in our Common World from the attempted censorship of
The Power and the Glory
by the Holy Office. All the more strange do I find the account of his funeral in My Own World.
I attended David Mathew’s funeral in December 1964. It was a very bizarre service. I sat in the gallery of the church with a friend and was much annoyed by the whispering, even giggling, which went on in the congregation below. I wanted to call down to them, ‘The archbishop is my friend and he is dead.’ Then my companion whispered to me, ‘One of the priests—I do believe he’s trying not to laugh.’ It was very odd, and I might have put it down to the hysteria of grief had not another of the serving priests seizedthe altar by its end with a gay laugh a moment later and wheeled it quickly, like a table, out of the church. The service came to an end in a riot of gaiety.
Now, looking back after the passage of many years, I ask myself whether the end of life should not always be celebrated in some such way.
*
In conversation with me, Graham Greene described how this passage found its way into the novel from the dream, so for the interest of readers I have added it here
. YVONNE CLOETTA
VIII
Brief Contacts with Royalty
King Leopold
One night in 1964 I was rung up by ex-King Leopold of the Belgians, who wanted my advice. He was organizing a fair to represent the history of Belgium, to be held in all the world capitals, and he was wondering how to deal with the unfortunate history of the Congo. I suggested that he should simply leave it out, but my reply satisfied neither of us.
I then proposed that he should be completely frank, and admit the crime of his great-great-grandfather (I wasn’t quite sure that I had got the relation right) and the mistakes of the Belgian government. ‘You might compare them with the crimes of other countries including my own—the massacre of Amritsar, for example.’ I have never known whether he
Lying in bed, I made a great decision to turn my back on Christianity altogether and take up Buddhism. At that moment of decision I had the sense of Christ close by me. His outline was faintly visible in the dark, and he seemed unhappy at losing me. I regained at least my half faith.
I had been reading an interesting Jewish book on Christ. It compared Christ’s career with that of anearlier Jew called Mouskie. Mouskie had come to a very similar end. Jesus knew Mouskie’s story and therefore he saw the likelihood that he would die in the same way. Mouskie too had foreseen his end, but his knowledge had been based on the Prophecies while Jesus’s foresight was based on the history of Mouskie, which seemed to make Mouskie the greater figure.
Another interesting feature in the book dealt with the story of Nicodemus. He took refuge up a tree and refused to come down because he was afraid to speak to Jesus, since he saw that Jesus was guarded by two ‘rough Galileans’.
A new Order was being formed in the Church by a group of priests who were giving an exaggerated importance to Saint Paul, almost a priority over Christ. A symbol of the Order, which could be bought in shops selling pious objects, was a bust in china of Saint Paul with three arms, and heads growing out of his arms. I think the Order flourished best in Spain.
A reaction against the Order was being led by a priest I know, who had written a book criticizing it. Late one night he was rung up on the telephone bysomeone needing an urgent confession: a rendezvous was agreed to at a church on the other side of town. He set out but slowly became suspicious. Was he being followed? He turned and went back.
On returning, he found the street in which he lived ablaze—not only his house but the houses of four other priests who had opposed the new Order.
Archbishop David Mathew, who was an excellent novelist as well as an historian, was a good friend who saved me by his advice in our Common World from the attempted censorship of
The Power and the Glory
by the Holy Office. All the more strange do I find the account of his funeral in My Own World.
I attended David Mathew’s funeral in December 1964. It was a very bizarre service. I sat in the gallery of the church with a friend and was much annoyed by the whispering, even giggling, which went on in the congregation below. I wanted to call down to them, ‘The archbishop is my friend and he is dead.’ Then my companion whispered to me, ‘One of the priests—I do believe he’s trying not to laugh.’ It was very odd, and I might have put it down to the hysteria of grief had not another of the serving priests seizedthe altar by its end with a gay laugh a moment later and wheeled it quickly, like a table, out of the church. The service came to an end in a riot of gaiety.
Now, looking back after the passage of many years, I ask myself whether the end of life should not always be celebrated in some such way.
*
In conversation with me, Graham Greene described how this passage found its way into the novel from the dream, so for the interest of readers I have added it here
. YVONNE CLOETTA
VIII
Brief Contacts with Royalty
King Leopold
One night in 1964 I was rung up by ex-King Leopold of the Belgians, who wanted my advice. He was organizing a fair to represent the history of Belgium, to be held in all the world capitals, and he was wondering how to deal with the unfortunate history of the Congo. I suggested that he should simply leave it out, but my reply satisfied neither of us.
I then proposed that he should be completely frank, and admit the crime of his great-great-grandfather (I wasn’t quite sure that I had got the relation right) and the mistakes of the Belgian government. ‘You might compare them with the crimes of other countries including my own—the massacre of Amritsar, for example.’ I have never known whether he
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