A few days later Georgia was discharged from the hospital with the
warning that she was convalescent, but not cured. She might by
indiscretion in the ensuing weeks make herself a semi-invalid for the
rest of her life; she might even bring about an acute relapse, in which
case she would be likely to die.
She telephoned the old man that she was ready to report the following
Monday, but he ordered her to stay away for at least another week,
saying that her place was absolutely safe and her salary running on.
She thanked him so earnestly for his kindness that he was minded to
break into her secret, congratulate her on her engagement, tell her it
was Stevens who had been kind and generous, but according to his
promise he refrained. He supposed she would quickly discover the facts
after their marriage anyway.
Jim was rodman with the surveying department of an important landscape
gardening firm. Sometimes his employment kept him out in the country
for two or three days at a time, but he turned in ten or twelve dollars
every Saturday night and the family was more comfortable than it had
ever been.
Georgia had in fairness to acknowledge that Jim had shown unexpectedly
decent feeling. During her fortnight of convalescence he had assumed
no right of proprietorship, made no demands. He slept on a lounge in
the front room and never went to her room without first knocking. She
wished that things might go on so indefinitely, but she knew that it
was now a question of days, perhaps of hours, before she must reassume
all the obligations of wifehood. She was getting well so rapidly and
so evidently that soon she would have no excuse for not meeting them.
She was grateful to Jim for his courtesy; and they spoke to each other
more kindly than ever before. They had ceased to act upon the theory
that it did not much matter what one said to the other since the other
had to stand it anyway. She had already taken over a year out of their
lives together to show that she did not have to stand it.
Their example was not without its influence upon the other members of
the family, Al and Mrs. Talbot, and there was far less wrangling and
friction in the household.
Not without hesitating dread Georgia brought herself to the grilled
shutter of Father Hervey's Gothic confessional box. She had been
derelict in this as in other obligations; except for her brief and half
delirious words of general contrition in the hospital, it was her first
confession for three years.
Sinking to her knees she whispered, "Bless me, Father, for I have
sinned."
She began the prayer of the penitent. "I confess to Almighty God, to
blessed Mary, ever Virgin, to blessed Michael, the archangel, to
blessed John the Baptist, to the holy apostles Peter and Paul, and to
all the saints, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word and
deed, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous
fault."
As she told her secret sins and pettiness to the priest, it seemed that
the poison of them was being drained from her memory where they had
become encysted. Her heart was cleaned and purified and lightened by
the process of the confessional.
It is indeed doubtful whether any other ecclesiastical instrument since
the world began has lifted so much sorrow from mankind.
Georgia's conspicuous and mortal sins were two--Doubt and her continued
entertainment of that feeling for Mason Stevens which, since it was
unlawful, the Church denominated Lust.
Doubt had followed naturally on absorption in worldly affairs,
dangerous associations and reading, and neglect of her obligations to
the Church. Especially reprehensible had been her frequent attendance
at the Sunday Evening Ethical Club, where the very air was impregnated
with dilute agnosticism.
In future she must be more careful in her choice of reading.
Materialism and atheism were skillfully concealed in many a so-called
sociological treatise. Not that sociology lacked certain elements of
truth, but the danger for untrained minds lay in exaggerating their
importance until they overshadowed greater truths. She would do well
hereafter to leave sociology to sociologists.
The Sunday Evening Ethical Club was anathema. She must not go there
again nor to any similar place where veiled socialism and anarchy were
preached.
The confessor was rejoiced that her duty toward her husband and toward
herself, for the two duties were one, had been so unmistakably revealed
to her. Did the image of the other man ever trouble her mind?
Yes, Georgia acknowledged it did.
That was to be expected, in the beginning. But it would cease to
trouble her before long. Did this image occur to her often?
Yes, she said, it did--very often, almost continually. It was not
always actively before her, she explained, but it seemed never far
away, as if it were just beneath the surface of her ordinary thoughts.
In that case it would be impossible to absolve her and she would remain
in a state of mortal sin unless she would promise solemnly to refrain
from all further thoughts of that man, and if ever they arose unbidden
to banish them immediately, as an evil spirit is cast out from one
possessed.
The priest waited, but the woman remained silent.
Did she remember, he asked severely, the words of our Savior, that "he
who looketh in lust, committeth adultery." If she kept this idol in
her heart, no priest had power to forgive her sins in His name. Her
choice was before her, her Lord or her flesh.
Her head was bowed, her hands clasped before her, and she felt tears
trickle slowly upon her knuckles.
"Oh, I promise, Father," she whispered, "to try never to think of him
any more, and to put him out of my mind--when--the thought
comes--unbidden."
The sincerity of her intention was evident in the tones of her voice
and she was offered her penance; to be hereafter scrupulous in her
religious observances; to hear one mass a week besides the Sunday mass
for two months; to say her prayers night and morning always reverently
on her knees, not standing or in bed; with the addition of five Our
Fathers and Hail Marys night and morning until her penance was
completed; to endeavor to influence her family to go with her to Sunday
mass each week; and to examine her conscience daily.
The wise and gentle old priest had not been harsh with her, and she
accepted humbly and gratefully the penance he imposed.
He prayed to God to regard her mercifully and to lead her to eternal
life, then raising his right hand he recited over her the consecrated
syllables of the sacrament, ending with the solemn words of peace, _Ego
te absolvo a peccatis in nomine Patris_, here he made the sign of the
cross, _et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen_. (I absolve thee from thy
sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
Amen.)
Georgia left the confessional and went to the other part of the church
to pray for a clean and strengthened spirit.
The Sunday following she went with Jim, Al and Mrs. Talbot to the
cathedral where pontifical mass was celebrated. Encrusted with the
accumulated observances of centuries of faith, it is, perhaps, the most
intricate, aesthetic and impressive religious rite ever practiced by
mankind.
From the archbishop seated on his throne, wearing his two-horned mitre
in sign of the two testaments, his emerald ring as spouse of the
Church, his silken tunic and dalmatic, his gloves of purity; with his
shepherd's crosier in his hand, his woolen pallium over his shoulders,
bound with three golden pins in memory of the three nails which
fastened Him; from the archbishop crowned with gold to the least
acolyte in surplice of white to recall His life, and cassock of black
to recall His sorrow, the hierarchical symbolism is complex,
mysterious, complete, beautiful.
When Georgia, genuflecting and signing herself with holy water, passed
through the cathedral's double doors which prefigure the two sides of
His being, she felt as if she were coming home again after a long,
unhappy journey. The clustered shafts of the columns carried her eyes
up to the high, darkened groins of the roof. The south sun streamed in
colors through the saints of the windows. In the east, on the altar,
the tall slender candles burned purely.
The incense puffed from the swinging censer, like smoke, familiar and
pleasing to her. When the priest nine times uttered Kyrie eleison, the
prayer of fallen humanity, she felt as if a friend were interceding for
her before a great judge.
It made her proud to see the slow evolutions of the choir, regular and
disciplined, to hear as if far away their solemn chants in stately
Latin, to feel that she belonged to the same fabric of which they were
a part.
As the service proceeded, the priests passing back and forth before the
altar making obeisance and kissing its holy stone in ancient and
regular form, the world outside receded continuously further from the
people in the church, and they became increasingly merged into one
single, splendid act of worship.
Holding the jewelled paten with its bread, above the jewelled chalice
with its wine, the archbishop made three signs of the cross to
commemorate the living hours of the crucifixion; then moving the paten
he made two signs to signify the separation of His soul and body. The
altar bell tinkled, a symbol of the convulsion of nature in that
supreme hour. A great sigh went through the Church.