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Page 37
Helwyse's face expressed neither anguish nor relief; he presently lost
himself in thoughts of his own, only returning to the perception of
outside things when the barber asked him whether he, also, had ever
attended camp-meeting; the subject being evidently one which had been
held forth upon for some time past.
"No?" continued the little man who by long practice had acquired a
wonderful power of interpreting silence. "Well, it's a great thing,
sir; and a right curious thing is experiencing religion, too! A great
blessing I've found it, sir; there's a peace dwells with me, as the
minister says, right along all the time now. Does the razor please
you, sir? Ah! I was a wild and godless being once, although always
reckoned a smart hand with the razor;--Satan never took my cunning
hand, as the poet says, away from me. Yes, there was a time when I was
how-d' y'-do with all the bloods around the place, and a good business
I used to do out of them, too, sir; but religion is a peace there's no
understanding, as the Good Book says; and if I don't make all I used
to, I save twice as much,--and that's the good of it, sir. Beau-ti-ful
chin is yours, sir, I declare!"
"Do you believe in the orthodox faith?" demanded Helwyse; "in
miracles, and the Trinity, and so forth?"
"Everything we're told to believe in I believe, I hope, sir; and as
quick as I hear anything more, why, I'm ready to believe that also,
provided only it comes through orthodox channels, as the saying is.
Ah, sir, it's the unquestioning belief that brings the happiness. I
wouldn't have anything explained to me, not if I could! and my faith
is such, that what goes against it I never would believe, not if you
proved it to me black and white, sir! Love-ly skin you've got,
sir,--it's just like a woman's. The intellect is a snare, that's what
it is,--ah, yes! You think with me, sir, don't you?"
But Helwyse had relapsed into silence. The little hair-dresser was
happy, was he?--happy, and hopeful, and conscious of spiritual
progress?--had no misgivings and feared no danger,--because he had
eliminated reason from his scheme of religion! Divine reason,--could
man live without it? A snare?--Well, had not Balder found it so?
True, that was not reason's fault, but his who misused reason. True,
also, that he who believed on others' authority believed not ideas but
men, and was destitute of self-reliance or dignity. Yet the
hair-dresser seemed to find in that very dependence his best
happiness, and to have built up a factitious self-respect from the
very ruin of true dignity. His position was the antipodes of Balder's,
yet, if results were evidence, it was tenable and more successful.
This plump, superficial, smiling little hair-dresser was a person of
no importance, yet it happened to him to modify not only Helwyse's
external aspect, but the aspect of his mind as well,--by the
presentation of a new idea; for strange to say, Helwyse had never
chanced to doubt that seraphim were higher than cherubim, or that
independence was the only ladder to heaven. To be taught by one
avowedly without intellect is humiliating; but the experience of many
will furnish examples of a singular disregard of this kind of
proprieties.
When the shaving was done to the artist's satisfaction, he held the
mirror before his customer's face. Helwyse looked narrowly at his
reflection, as was natural in making the acquaintance of one who was
to be his near and intimate companion. He beheld a set of features
strongly yet gracefully built, but shorn of a certain warm, manly
attractiveness. The immediate visibility of mouth and chin--index of
so large a part of man's nature--startled him. He was dismayed at the
ease wherewith the working of emotion might now be traced. Man wholly
unveiled to himself is indeed an awful spectacle, be the
dissection-room that of the surgeon or of the psychologist. Hardly
might angels themselves endure it. A measure of ignorance of ourselves
is wise, because consciousness of a weakness may lead us to give it
rein. Perfect strength can coexist only with perfect knowledge, but
neither is attainable by man. Man should pay to be screened from
himself, lest his sword fail,--lest the Gorgon's head on his breast
change him to stone.
The gracious, outflowering veil of Balder Helwyse's life had vanished,
leaving nakedness. Henceforth he must depend on fence, feint and
guard, not on the downright sword-stroke. With Adam, the fig-leaf
succeeded innocence as a garment; for Helwyse, artificial address must
do duty as a fig-leaf. The day of guiltless sincerity was past; gone
likewise the day of open acknowledgment of guilt. Now dawned the day
of counterfeiting,--not always the shortest of our mortal year.
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