The picture which she saw on the wall opposite, across the foot of the
bed, was of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
It was the thing which she had seen oftenest and looked at longest
since she had been in the hospital. It hung directly before her eyes
as she lay in bed with her head on the pillow. She saw it first on
waking and last before sleeping. Sometimes when she awoke suddenly in
the middle of the night she could feel the picture still there,
watching her in the darkness with mournful eyes.
When first she looked at it she realized how crude it was in execution.
Its colors were glaring. The Man wore a shining white cloak which he
drew back to show underneath a blue garment. On this, placed
apparently on the outside of it, was a Sacred Heart of red, girt in
thorns. Holy flames proceeded from it, and there was a nimbus of
encircling light.
She saw that it would have been better if the Sacred Heart had seemed
to glow through His garment, instead of being obviously superposed upon
it; that softer blue and grayer white and less scarlet red would have
been truer tones for a religious picture. She took not a little pride
in her critical perceptiveness.
But as she lay watching the picture day after day, she appreciated the
superficiality of her first judgment of it. She had been looking at
colored inks and the marks made by copper plates, not at a symbol of
eternity.
Does one estimate a put-by baby's slipper, or a lock of someone's hair,
or a wedding ring by its intrinsic worth? If the west side print shop
which made the picture before her had failed, it could have done
nothing else with that subject to portray. All attempts to represent
Christ must fail. Rafael had failed. Everyone would fail.
Even the Church had failed. There had been bad popes, had there not?
But the Church had tried to represent Him. The Church had come nearer
to doing so than any other enginery or person. The saintliest persons
had belonged to her and died for her and in her.
One Church, she knew, He had founded, and left behind Him. One and but
one. "Thou art Peter and on this rock I will build my church." It was
unequivocal. Christ did not say "churches," He said "church." There
was but one which He had built.
And she had defied it; she had hardened her heart against it; she had
sent away its appointed minister in order to exalt herself.
Her eyes were drawn again to the Sacred Heart, bound in the thorns
which she and hers had placed there. So it had been, so it would be.
Christ was crucified again each day, in the hearts of the people whom
He loved. Had she not herself also given Him vinegar upon a sponge?
She felt the tears trickling down her cheeks as she thought of her own
supreme selfishness, and she looked through blurred eyes at the
representation of the most supremely unselfish face that mankind has
been able to conceive.
Then suddenly divine forgiveness seemed to descend upon her and level
the bounds and limits of her ego; the barriers of her nature gave way
and she found herself at one with all creation; she, and humanity, and
nature, and God were together. Her soul seemed to quicken itself
within her and ineffable light shone about her.
She fell on her knees at her bedside, her adoring eyes upon the
pictured countenance of her Savior. Over and over again she repeated
that wonderful word learned at the convent, which expresses all prayer
in itself. "Peccavi," she prayed, "peccavi, peccavi."
It seemed to her at last, when she arose from her knees that she had
washed all her sins away with the passion of her contrition; that she
had been born again in the spirit and become pure. In her ecstasy she
thought that the face of her dear Lord regarded her now less
mournfully, and that there was joy in His smile where there had been
only sorrow.
She knew for the first time in her self-willed life the peace
unspeakable of entire self-surrender. Her tears continued, but they
were tears of joy, and she sobbed as sometimes prisoners sob when
pardoned unexpectedly. The miracle of deliverance rolled over her soul
like a flood, washing away the barriers of self-control.
During her weeks in the hospital she had lived in an atmosphere of
perfect faith, as intense and vital, almost, as that of the middle
ages. Those who had carried and comforted her through her sickness,
nurses and gentle nuns, could not doubt that Christ had died to save
them and to save her.
She was environed with Catholicism. Sometimes she could see through
her partly opened door a black-coated priest passing in the hall to
shrive a dying sinner. The chimes and chants from the chapel came
faintly to her ears with benediction. The picture of the Sacred Heart
hung before her eyes in unceasing reminder of the whole marvelous
fabric of the Church.
Because of her lowered vitality and her days of idleness in bed, her
receptivity to exterior impressions was greatly increased. The steady
stream of suggestions of her ancient religion which had flowed in upon
her welled higher and higher in her subconsciousness until they crossed
the line of consciousness and took sudden and complete possession of
her mind.