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As if hesitant to leave the composer and the clergy alone, the last of the other confessors trickled out of the door. Some with the Hail Mary drifting all their lips, and all with a certain purity of countenance that came with absolution.
This church was a good bit newer and more modest than some others Liszt had worshiped in in Europe, and a greater number of those in the Orient. Here, the confessional cabinet was open on one end, leaving the penitent open to the baleful eyes of the architecture, as well as those waiting to confess their own sins.
Liszt wished it was himself and not the priest that was hidden from the view of the congregation. His striking looks had been a boon in his efforts to win the hearts of the people, but now served to shame him—he who had come here to confess sins that half of Europe knew better than gospel. Liszt could perform before the public and confess before God, but could not yet find it in himself to interchange the two.
Yet here, alone, he brought himself to confession. It was a comfort to kneel once more before the confessional. Liszt had been unmoored from his faith for too long, far too caught up in his worldly aims to honor properly the fervent piety of his younger self. A chanced look at the screen revealed a profile not unlike Liszt's own, as if the late Adam Liszt was waiting for his son's penitence. This was no comfort.
"Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It has been seven years since my last confession."
There was, in response to this admission, a stirring behind the screen. "Is there any reason that you have neglected this sacrament for so many years?"
Liszt ground his teeth. "It is difficult, father, when you travel so often as I do."
The shadow behind the screen nodded. His response acknowledged, if not accepted, Liszt carried on.
"I've been a Mason for the past seven years, father. And yet, father, I cannot confess that I have rejected the faith, as I see no reason why a Catholic man cannot hold dear the same values as—"
His self-absolution was cut short by the priest's sharp admonishment. This, too, was not unlike Liszt's memories of his father. "That is not your judgment to make. The designation of Freemasonry as an enemy of the church is clear. Would you doubt the words of His Holiness?"
Liszt shook his head and continued.
"Further, I have dishonored my father even in his death. The idea of visiting Boulogne-sur-Mer is little more than poison to me. I myself am dishonored. I have left my children behind, and been remiss in nurturing their faith."
His children… "I have made an adulterer of myself. I have committed fornication too many times to enumerate."
"You would not even attempt to keep track?"
"Of the women—" Here Liszt gagged on his words. That would have to come later, when the church was darker still and he no longer felt the gaze of the long-gone congregation. "Perhaps twenty. There is reason to believe I have seduced more woman than I’ve met." Liszt felt the heat travel up from his numb knees to his face. He was like a child again, embarrassed to be seen by the women he played for. "The carnal act itself, however… it was as natural to me as a drink in the evening. My father knew. He had told me there, on his deathbed, that my lust would be the end of me…
"Yet, I intend to marry, father. I intend to marry a divorced woman."
"It is an impossibility and a sin to marry if her husband yet lives."
A part of Liszt that he had carefully nurtured with cigars and drink in Paris told Liszt that he did not care at all whether it was a sin, so long as it was possible.
"I know, father.
"I have coveted yet another man’s wife, and had her. Sired three bastards." He was beginning to run out of mortal sins to confess, something which he would never have thought possible of himself. Hastily, he added on: "I am guilty, also, of thinking ungenerously of those around me."
The father’s impatience welled up behind the screen.
All fourteen of the holy helpers breathed down Liszt's neck. Were that he had joined the clergy in his youth as he had so desired, and never have fallen so! His knees began to shake under him.
Chopin.
"My daughter is named for a good friend of mine." Saint Cosmas whispered at his ear, but all Liszt could hear was the bubbling blood in his throat.
"That is no sin."
If only he could just know, without Liszt's own lips having to form the words. How easy it was to speak of Chopin, then, when he'd reviewed his performance just seven years ago! A kingdom in an empire, indeed. "I have hurt this friend in many ways, father. He believes that I sought to undermine him, when nothing could be farther from the truth!"
His composure wavered. Liszt wanted to stand up and run into the darkness. But he stayed kneeling as he had so many times before.
"Yet I confess, father, that I have hated him for knowing his tongue, when I am yet to understand my mother’s language. I confess that I have wished him harm for this. I have let bitter envy take root in my heart and control my actions."
A wave of nausea that had been seven years into cresting threatened to overtake him. Liszt shut his eyes against the onslaught of emotion that seemed insistent on making itself known through his eyes. His quivering knees, the sweat dripping off his brow, his teeth that alternated between grinding and chattering, all were restrained in a way that Liszt's passions had never been before.
"I confess that I have taken that tongue and trapped it against my own."
His eloquence, which had previously only left him when he was in the company of cognac, abandoned him altogether now. The word "sodomy" simply would not leave his mouth.
"Father, I have let idolatry into my heart. Every day for the last seven years. I have worshiped not at the foot of the lord but in between his thighs. I felt that I would rather have his heels at my back than the gardens of Heaven at my feet. I believe I seduced him. Fourteen times. I have damned his soul as I have my own." At a time when the question of Chopin's soul's place was paramount to Liszt's own wellbeing.
"I love him still. I love another while I intend to wed."
He did not want to be forgiven for this. The only forgiveness he sought for this was one that would never be offered.
"I have despaired. I have faltered in my faith."
After a long period of silence, Franz spoke one last time.
"Father, I confess that I have licked the blood from inside his mouth.
"I confess that I have swallowed it."