What Manner of Man: Chapter 17 🦇

How often haunting the highest hilltop, / I scan the ocean, a sail to see.

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JOURNAL ENTRY

Dated June 15, 1950.

I went out to the edge of the sea-cliff, today — having determined, in a state of high emotion, to commit that collection of vulgar magazines of mine to the crashing waves. (Now, more than ever, it is vital that I strive my utmost to avoid all such near occasions of sin.) As I looked out, however, I was met with the alarming sight of the wreckage of a sailboat on the beach far below.

I recognized the vessel as Lord Vane’s at a glance — it lay discarded upon the rocky shore, a short distance from the stone ruins which once formed part of a harbour of considerable size. Almost before I was conscious of it, I was hurrying down the long stairway that led to the cove.

Twice I nearly tripped, in my haste, over the fallen heads and other fragments that litter the sand; broken from the statues which once lined the ruined harbour structure. Cracked, stony arms seemed to reach up and catch at me, tearing the hem of my garment.

I found him looking utterly wild — his usually-immaculate hair windblown into a white-tinged lion’s mane. His shirt was unbuttoned and the sleeves rolled up as he heaved against the side of the beached vessel, muscles straining. He looked so unlike the man I have come to know that I dared not come nearer, though something about him held me rapt. Lord Vane looked up at my approach. For a moment, as his eyes found me, they seemed not his own.

“The walls are closing in,” he muttered. His voice was low and cracked as the statues. “I used to be able to make it nearly to the mainland. Today I barely made it past the shoal before I —” He trailed off, but it was easy enough for me interpret the broad strokes. Something — a fit of madness, or some passion beyond my understanding — had taken him when he had traveled too far from this infernal place.

I watched as, with effort, he attempted to compose himself for my sake; piecing back together the broken elements into something resembling the man I remembered.

When he spoke again, his voice was more assured. “What are you doing here?”

“I had to make sure you weren’t hurt —”

“Oh, if only I were capable of being hurt in such a way,” he said, cutting me off with a dismissive gesture. Then he turned to me, eyes narrowing. “And why concern yourself? If you had any sense of your own welfare, you should have left me to die.”

I felt an instinctual prickle of fear creep up my spine, but suppressed it. This could not be the only way out — I refused to believe it.

“I cannot stand passively by and allow any man — even the most wicked of all sinners — to suffer.”

A shade of longing passed across his expression, then just as quickly vanished. “Then you’re a fool.”

“It’s fortunate that I don’t need to rely on your compassion.”

He smiled wryly, looking to the beached hull. “A pity that your compassion was insufficient to save my vessel; that will never sail again. The rock I hit left a hole in the side larger than the rose window.” I had never heard a voice so expressive of despair. He clenched his fists as he spoke. “This, too, I have destroyed. All because of that moment of weakness when I stopped myself from completing the ritual. Why? What is this power you have over me — why could I not finish what I began?”

He turned on me as he spoke, his eyes flashing dangerously. He looked as if he might easily throttle me. Then, suddenly, there was a shifting of the earth beneath us and I heard a sound like thunder. Part of the crumbling stonework had given way, sending fragments of heavy statuary crashing down directly over our heads.

It was Lord Vane who saved me — coming to his senses, he leapt upon me and bodily thrust me back; pushing me down into the sand just moments before the place where I had been standing was crushed under a massive weight of broken stone and rubble.

For a moment, neither of us moved as he lay atop me, panting heavily for breath. Swept up in the thrilling urgency of all this, I did not immediately notice the signs — but, as I recovered, it became clear that something was wrong.

Lord Vane’s weight pressed me into the warm sand and he stared at me strangely, his lips slightly parted as he continued to breathe heavily. His eyes seemed almost black in the dying sun. His unfixed gaze seemed to hesitate between my mouth and my throat, charged with a hunger I scarcely recognized. His red lips parted further, and between I glimpsed the teeth of an animal — the long, pointed canines of a carnivore.

What I felt in that moment was not fear. (It should have been fear, should it not?) Some mad part of me longed for him to sink those teeth into my weak flesh, to feel my lifeblood well up around his lips and run out from me.

After a tense moment, he raised himself slightly, but did not stand. I was still pinned under his weight. In this position he stared at me, his expression unreadable.

“Is your god merciful? I will need a lot of mercy.”

Confused, I replied without thought. “God’s mercy is infinite.”

“Then I wish you to perform your exorcism ritual. Let’s have done with it.”

“What?”

“I have nothing left. I will submit willingly to your god. Perform your exorcism. Perhaps it will simply kill me, and end this.”

I found myself hesitating, tangled up in my own doubts about my ability to perform the necessary ritual with this taint upon me; about the nature of the evil itself. “But surely,” I protested, “You yourself do not believe it will work.”

“What difference should that make, from your perspective? Must a demon believe? I am taking the one thing you offered me.”

I was unable to answer this and so, at length, I assented. Oh Saint Aloysius, although I am thy unworthy servant, bless my undertakings. In his name, my God, have mercy.

Lord Vane is changing. He never rides anymore; nor does he engage in any of his other customary pursuits. I hardly see him at all, in fact, from day to day. If there was once something noble in him, it is rapidly vanishing beneath the tide. I can’t shake the image from my mind of him standing there on the beach, in among the bleached coral and blackened seaweed, bone and shell, of which he was surely a part.

I see death all around me, here; that natural death which always brings forth new life. The moss encroaches upon the fallen tree; wildflowers spring anew from the the dead, decaying undergrowth. The fate which threatens Lord Vane, however, is beyond death — this creeping annihilation; this oblivion. Is this what is left behind by the wrath of God?

The totality of all my learning on the subject of the Devil and his servants warns me to be suspicious of his request — and yet I am not. Perhaps it hardly matters, as I doubt that I am even capable of fulfilling it.

The bitter irony is that, in this supreme moment when at last I have been given this chance to do that which I came here for, I am impotent. No matter how many times I read through the Roman Ritual I feel as if it only shows me how far I’ve fallen, how impossible it will be for me to restart my ascent.

Yet as wood holds potential buried in secret, that fire which comes to life through rubbing like against its like, I must find that harsh measure of effort that will spark my soul to flame. Fire may destroy the substance which gives it life, and so be it! I have no need of this life any more. It is merely a challenge to the strength of my faith.

I know this — if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye live through the Spirit to mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature.

If I am to face the exorcism ritual alone, it will take every resource I have, every tool at my disposal to prepare myself. It is fortunate that I have, in my luggage, (among all the other tools of my faith which I thought might possibly be necessary,) some instruments of penance — including a small scourge of traditional design. I have never had occasion to use it, but I am familiar with the method.

JOURNAL ENTRY

Dated June 16, 1950.

I hardly dare to record that which passed between myself and my Lord this evening, so sacred and intimate was the experience — but, oh, I am so full of divine fervor that surely it must find expression somehow.

It came to me after many long hours spent chastising my body; kneeling before the antique crucifix which is among my most treasured possessions. All pain which is suffered in obedience to one’s Lord and Saviour is converted into the supremest pleasure, and the kiss of the whip — sweet, to me, as honeyed wine — drew cries from my lips with every blow. Even as I drove myself to the very edge of my physical limitations, begging the Lord for mercy, I felt that I was being torn down to be rebuilt anew; all my sin obliterated by the blinding, incandescent ecstacy of His divine love. I can still feel each flamelike stroke as I count, with joy, the burning red stripes on my body.

It was in the midst of this that I felt the touch of the divine — the consuming, all-powerful love of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. I have no words to express the bliss of that embrace. Oh Lord — far more than your servant, I am your slave.

Increasingly, of late, I find it is my ring that guides me as much as my crucifix. Its heart is a hollow through which all can pass. I want to empty myself in the same way. I am nothing and I will become nothing. Only in this way will I achieve that spiritual silence which will enable me to hear the voice of God.

I can see, now, what I have been denying all along — this great trial set before me by God. I must save Lord Vane. If I do this, then I will be forgiven for my trespasses. I am only a small man, it is Lord Vane who is great. It is he who struggles so valiantly against a greater burden than I can ever understand, that even in so fallen a state I can still see virtue in him — that he would still ask me to save him, even now, that he would willingly submit to God. This sinner — he is everything noble that I am not. I believe that if I am successful I may be in my own small way the catalyst by which he becomes a saint.

If this exorcism is to be my last act on earth, then by releasing my soul from the tyranny of the flesh, it shall be cleansed. For far more glorious than the body is the soul; at the end, the body gives way to the beauty of the soul, and the soul, free from earthly taint, may see the majesty of the Godhead.

P.S. FROM 2024:

Hello! 👋 What you’re reading is a draft version of What Manner of Man. Need I even say, at this point, that all of the above has been made more erotic than the version of events you’ve just read?

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