“Let us go to the Palazzo M⸺,” suggested Gzhatski to Irene one bright,
sunny morning towards the middle of March. “They have a very interesting
family festival there to-day, and except in Rome you will nowhere see
anything similar.”
So they drove to the old quarter of Rome, where most of the palaces of
the Roman aristocracy are to be found.
The exterior of the Palazzo M⸺ was in no sense strikingly beautiful.
It was built in something like a semi-circle, which fact seemed in old
times, when the street was narrow, perfectly natural. Now, however, the
Corso being straight and broad, the effect is peculiar. At some time
in the Middle Ages, Saint Philip of Neri had worked a miracle in this
palace, having brought back to life a dead child of the M⸺ family.
Saint Philip had entered the room a moment after little Paolo M⸺ had
breathed his last, and had found the parents sobbing with grief and
despair over the body of their beloved boy. Touched by their sorrow,
the Saint had commanded the departed one to arise, upon which Paolo had
immediately come back to life. “Why have you brought me back to earth?”
he had asked his parents, in tones of reproach. “I was so happy _there_!”
Struck by these words, the parents had prayed Saint Philip to let Paolo
die again, and the Saint, with a wave of his hand, had released the
innocent young soul, that it might fly back to a happier world.
This miracle had been performed on a 16th of March, and, to the present
day, the top floor of the palazzo, with the chapel in which the remains
of Saint Philip repose, is thrown open every year on that date to the
people of Rome. In an unbroken stream the neighbouring poor with their
little children, monks and nuns, as well as the inevitable tourists,
ascend and descend the splendid staircase. The entrance to the palace is
decorated for the occasion with flags and brightly-coloured draperies. In
the doorway stands a servant in gold-embroidered uniform, the courtyard
is crowded, and heads peep from all the little windows of the third floor.
The rooms leading to the chapel are low, with wood-panelled ceilings,
narrow windows, and furniture of the Middle Ages. The chapel itself is
brilliantly illuminated. Women, one after another, fall on their knees
and pray fervently. This is a children’s festival, particularly dear to
mothers. Monks and nuns repeat the legend in detail to the assembled
crowd, the Roman poor listening reverently and with emotion, the tourists
looking on with mocking smiles.
On the same day, in the great reception rooms below, the princely M⸺
family receives its friends, from four to seven. The family is of ancient
and historic lineage, tracing its origin back to pre-Christian Rome.
Like all the rest of the Roman aristocracy the princes are religious
Catholics, firm in their allegiance to the Vatican.
Irene’s gaze wandered in mute admiration round the enormous
entrance-hall, with its magnificent painted ceiling, its antique statues,
and the crimson baldaquin at one of its walls. Only the most ancient
families in Rome possess such a baldaquin. Under it stands the chair
reserved in old days for the use of the Pope, who frequently honoured
noble Romans with his visits. Across the balustrade surrounding this
throne, footmen, in most wonderful blue and cerise liveries, were laying
the wraps of arriving visitors, to whom at the same time a house-steward
in black dress clothes and a heavy chain was handing a visitors’ book
for signature. Beyond the hall could be seen long enfilades of rooms,
with magnificent tapestries, pictures, statues, and many other ancient
treasures of art not to be met with elsewhere. Irene particularly noticed
a jewel-case in the shape of a girl’s figure carved in wood, and coloured.
The guests were assembled in the principal drawing-room, an immense room
with a painted wooden ceiling of the fifteenth century. The walls were
hung with crimson brocade, and covered with pictures by old masters. The
portières were of heavy crimson velvet, the furniture was massive and
gilt. In the middle of the room, over the red felt with which the floor
was covered, lay two large white bear-skins, the only compatriots Irene
met at this reception.
The whole M⸺ family was present, grandfather, grandmother, and grandson
(a handsome boy of fifteen, dressed in the uniform of one of the Roman
colleges)—even an eight-months-old infant in a film of white lace,
presiding majestically on the knees of his nurse, an Albanian peasant
woman, attired in her picturesque national costume. The tiny prince
seemed to be enjoying himself more than anyone else, energetically and
with gurgles of delight pulling the moustache of every man and tearing
off the veil of every lady who bent over him! It was charming to see the
indescribable tenderness with which the whole family regarded this latest
representative of their ancient race!
In general, the festival was patriarchal and aristocratic to the highest
degree—aristocratic in the true fashion of ancient times, when the
nobles, really loving the people, befriended them and opened their doors
to them on all festive occasions. It was so in all countries, and that
wholly un-Christian and senseless gulf which now separates one class from
another only came into being with the formation of the middle class,
uncertain of itself, having no ground under its feet, dragging hopelessly
after the aristocracy, and kicking back with hatred and repulsion the
lower classes from which it had so recently risen.
At one end of the drawing-room stood a tea table, and, according to a
charming Roman custom, tea, chocolate, and ices were offered to the
visitors. Italians can drink hot chocolate and eat ices almost at the
same time, without dying!
Irene sat down in a corner, and watched the scene before her with
delighted interest. She thought of how, in Petrograd, anything connected
with Catherine the Great or Alexander I. was considered ancient.
Such antiquity might, here, in this Roman Palace, be looked upon as
positively modern! For the first time, Irene realized the youth of her
own country. The proud girl, considering herself on an equality with
the greatest Russian families, felt a little humiliated at the thought
that the ancestors of her princely hosts once walked about the Forum in
togas, took part in the government of ancient Rome and in the creation
of a great art and a great literature, and gave their laws to the whole
civilized world. She tried to picture to herself the Russia of that time:
a wilderness peopled by savage hordes in skins of wild beasts, nomad
tribes, wandering through forests and swamps and deserts.…
Her dreams were interrupted by the old Prince, who, noticing that she was
alone, and prompted by his antique and aristocratic sense of hospitality,
approached to entertain her. Irene broached the subject of the legend,
and naïvely added that she supposed the chapel and adjoining rooms were
only opened for this one day every year.
“No, indeed,” answered the Prince with a smile—“the rooms are in
constant use, and our Chaplain holds daily services in the chapel.”
Irene felt confused, and at the same time a curious feeling of envy came
over her.
“How happy these people are,” she thought, to have lived for so many
centuries in the same town, in the same house, surrounded by legends and
traditions and the shadows of their ancestors! All this is real—they
are not masquerading in strange costumes and beliefs and customs, like
emigrants of all nationalities, who spend their lives in travelling
North, South, East and West, in search of new sensations and impressions.
There came to Irene’s mind the thought of one of her friends, a girl
with a mania for having herself photographed in the national costume of
every country she visited. An entire little shelf in Irene’s Petrograd
drawing-room was covered with frames from which smiled the young girl’s
round, laughing, purely Slavonic little face, here under the fez of a
Crimean Tartar maid, there under a Spanish mantilla, elsewhere in the
guise of a Neapolitan fisher-girl. Had not Irene’s own wish to enter
a convent also been nothing much more than a desire to dress up in a
picturesque costume?
These thoughts reminded her of Père Etienne, and on returning to her
_pension_, Irene wrote and asked him to come and see her. She had seen
very little of him lately. Père Etienne felt that something had happened
to change Irene’s ideas during her stay at Assisi—but, however much he
questioned her, he couldn’t discover what that something had been. Seeing
that she had drifted into social life, he regretfully left off paying her
his daily visits. Like all true pastors, he always attached himself to
his spiritual children, and was sincerely grieved when the circumstances
of life separated him from them. The warm-hearted old man now consoled
himself with the thought that he had been mistaken in taking convent life
to be Irene’s vocation, and that she would be happier if she married her
compatriot. In his heart, however, there still lingered an intuition
that would not let him believe in matrimonial happiness for her. No one
understands human nature better than a clever priest, who hears countless
confessions and looks into the deepest recesses of the countless souls
that are laid bare before him.
On receiving Irene’s invitation, he went to her immediately, and they
spent a charming evening together. The convent in the Via Gallia was not
even mentioned. They spoke of Saint Philip of Neri, of his life and his
pupils, of miracles and prayer.
The following day Irene awoke in a pious mood, and put off Gzhatski,
who had arranged to take her to some local function. Gzhatski, clever
strategist that he was, guessed what had happened, and hastened to create
a diversion. He disappeared for a time, made mysterious arrangements,
and kept mysterious appointments, and after three days, arrived suddenly
to inform Irene that Cardinal R⸺ would receive her in audience at seven
o’clock that evening.
“Receive me!” exclaimed Irene in surprise. “But why should I go to him?”
“Why not make the acquaintance of a Cardinal, once he is kind enough
to wish to receive you?” answered Gzhatski. “You have decided to join
the Catholic Church, and you ought to know more of its priesthood. Père
Etienne alone is insufficient—there are plenty of other enlightened and
clever men among the Roman priests—they are by no means all furious
fanatics!”