The Catholic and the Orthodox Easter fell that year on the same date.
It was already Passion Week, and for some days Irene saw nothing of
Gzhatski. He was preparing for Easter Communion, and went every day to
the Russian Church. Irene, on her side, was anxious not to miss even the
least of the Catholic services and ceremonies. A spell of cold, windy
weather had broken in upon the sunny springtime, and, perhaps on this
account, perhaps also through the fatigue of constant long standing in
church (there are no chairs in the great Roman cathedrals), Irene’s
nerves were in an unbearable state of tension and restlessness. With a
great effort, she turned her steps, on the Thursday evening, towards St.
Peter’s, where the annual ceremony of the washing of the altar was to
take place.
The immense church was filled from end to end with a dense,
closely-packed crowd, the service being, however, audible only to the
comparatively few who stood near the altar. For that matter, there really
was not any service at all. A Cardinal sat on the central throne, and
grouped around him on wooden seats and stools were the numerous grades
and members of the Vatican State Clergy. They were singing in low, dull,
monotonous tones, and their endless, wail-like, doleful chant produced
a most disagreeable impression on the nerves. The tired, enervated
crowd pressed against the wooden barriers that enclosed a free passage
for the procession. Everyone felt hot and tired and hungry, and faint
from the close, stuffy atmosphere. Cross Englishwomen were quarrelling
with neighbouring Italian women, and pushing them unceremoniously. In
perfectly audible tones they repeatedly remarked the impoliteness of
people in Rome, especially at St. Peter’s on that particular occasion.
Scarcely anybody was praying, the majority of those present having
come simply to witness an interesting spectacle. Pretty young American
girls were there with their sweethearts, and were undisguisedly amusing
themselves, chattering and laughing and coquetting. At last, after three
hours of responses and lamentations and misereres, the long-awaited
procession appeared. In front came young attendants in lace aprons, and
behind them fat old priests, looking like old women, with their smooth,
round faces, their ample mauve robes, and their mauve-lined, grey,
squirrel capes. Each one carried in his hand a rod with a sponge attached
to it. Last of all, also carrying an enormous sponge, came a Cardinal in
a red robe with a long train carried by an attendant.
The procession mounted the altar steps, and, all coverings and ornaments
having been previously removed, began to wash the altar. A scent of wine
spread through the church. Having concluded this ceremony, the procession
passed slowly and solemnly round the altar to the accompaniment of a
shower of rattles, sounded to denote the dismay and perturbation of all
Nature—the thunder and earthquake that followed Christ’s death.
Irene followed everything with great attention. A strange, new feeling of
contempt seemed to tremble in her soul. At home, in her own country, she
had always come away from the Passion Week services deeply touched, and
in great emotion. And now, all these unaccustomed ceremonies and costumes
and rites, the strange language, the extraordinary pagan ritual, suddenly
shocked her. Maybe she was overtired from three hours’ standing in the
crowd, and, therefore, more than usually critical—but true it is that she
contemplated almost with loathing the whole scene before her, even the
marble columns and the colossal statues of the great Roman Cathedral.
“And they call this Christianity!” she thought bitterly. “What an irony!
This is sheer paganism, and these are the same ancient Romans, still
worshipping the same old gods as before. They have never understood
Christ’s teaching, and they have buried it under marble shrines and
pagan ceremonies.
“In your place I would go a little further still,” exclaimed Irene’s
inner soul with malicious sarcasm. “I would destroy every New Testament
in the world, except one—and that one I would put in a golden,
jewel-studded box, and would bury it deep in the earth, forbidding its
disinterment on pain of death. Over it, I would build a splendid golden
shrine, and in this shrine I would celebrate night and day magnificent
services with gorgeous processions. That would be entirely in accordance
with the spirit of your Christianity.
“But you have not the temerity to go so far. You vaguely feel that some
day the world will arise in fury against you, will destroy your temples,
tear into shreds your splendid robes, and leave, alone and triumphant,
only the Gospel, the one Christian teaching humanity needs. And then,
there will come together ‘two or three in His Name,’ to read His Book and
to pray—and ‘He will be among them.’”
Thus, angrily, yet dreaming, Irene’s thoughts flew. Just in front of
her stood an Italian middle-class couple. The young husband held a
three-year-old girl by the hand while the pretty mother pressed to
her heart a white bundle, evidently a sleeping infant. The noise of
the rattles must have disturbed its slumbers, for suddenly the bundle
stirred, a tiny hand stretched itself forth in search of the mother’s
breast, and a low wail made itself heard. The mother immediately sat
down at the foot of a marble column, and began to feed the child. For
some reason, the idea occurred to Irene that in all that pagan crowd in
a pagan temple the only representatives of Christianity were that simple
mother and child.
“There is the great miracle!” she thought rapturously. “New life, coming
no one knows from where! Why are you all quarrelling about whether
certain miracles were or were not performed nineteen centuries ago in
Palestine? Why must you be certain of those particular miracles, before
you can believe in God? To-day, at this very moment, you are surrounded
by miracles. Birth, death, sunrise, springtime, winter—are not all these
miracles? You have forgotten them because you see them every day. In your
silly self-conceit, you assure yourselves that all this is perfectly
natural, and that science has long ago explained it all—but you forget
that your science has only _noted_ the existence of these miracles, and
that their secret belongs as much as ever to the Almighty Ruler of the
Universe in whom you find it so difficult to believe.”
Irene left the Cathedral in great moral perturbation. So great was her
excitement that she forgot to take a cab, and walked all the long way
home, in the face of a cutting east wind that she did not even notice.
Large tears ran down her face, she talked to herself, gesticulated, and
drew the attention of all passers-by. The pagan soul that had passed
Christianity by was sobbing and storming within her. For one moment,
under the influence of the very ceremonies she was execrating, she had
understood how priceless was the treasure she had lost. Life might have
been beautiful and full of harmony, whereas, on the path she had chosen,
there was nothing but constant, needless, helpless suffering. Someone
should have taught her Christianity! Her soul had been confided to
someone’s care, and that someone had not fulfilled his sacred duty!
And Irene, in her despair, cursed all lazy and idle slaves, for a voice
in her soul told her that her fate was sealed, and that it was too late
to try and change it.