XI

Roma fulfilled her promise. The funeral pomps, if the Countess could

have seen them, would have satisfied her vain little mind. On going to

the parish church the procession covered the entire length of the

street. First the banner with skull, cross-bones, and hour-glass, then a

confraternity of lay people, then twenty paid mourners in evening dress,

then fifty Capuchins at two francs a head with yellow candles at three

francs each, then the cross, then the secular clergy two and two, then

the parish priest in surplice and black stole with servitors and

acolytes, then a stately funeral car with four horses richly harnessed,

and finally four coaches with coachmen and footmen in gala livery. The

bier was loaded with flowers and streamers, and the cost of the cortège

was nearly a thousand francs.

As Roma passed out of the church with head down some one spoke to her.

It was the Baron, carrying his hat, on which there was a deep black

band. His tall spare figure, high forehead, straight hair, and features

hard as iron, made a painful impression.

"Sorry I cannot go on to the Campo Santo," he said, and then he added

something about breaks in the chain of life which Roma did not hear.

"I trust it is not true, as I am given to understand, that on leaving

your apartment you are going to live in the house of a certain person

whom I need not name. That would, I assure you, be a grave error, and I

would earnestly counsel you not to commit it."

She made no reply but walked on to the door of the carriage. He helped

her to enter it, and then said: "Remember, my attitude is the same as

ever. Do not deny me the satisfaction of serving you in your hour of

need."

When Roma came to full possession of herself after the Requiem Mass, the

cortège was on its way to the cemetery. There was a line of carriages.

Most of them were empty as the mourning of which they formed a part. The

parish priest sat with his acolyte, who held a crucifix before his eyes

so that his thoughts might not wander. He took snuff and said his Matins

for to-morrow.

The necropolis of Rome is outside the Porta San Lorenzo, by the church

of that name. The bier drew up at the House of Deposit. When the coaches

discharged their occupants, Roma saw that except the paid servants of

the funeral she was the only mourner. The Countess's friends, like

herself, disliked the sight of churchyards.

The House of Deposit, a low-roofed chamber under a chapel, contained

tressels for every kind and condition of the dead. One place was

labelled "Reserved for distinguished corpses." The coffin of the

Countess was put to rest there until the buriers should come to bury it

in the morning, the wreaths and flowers and streamers were laid over it,

the priest sprinkled it again with holy water, and then the funeral was

at an end.

"I will not go back yet," said Roma, and thereupon the priest and his

assistants stepped into the carriages. The drivers lit cigarettes and

started off at a brisk trot.

It had been a gorgeous funeral, and the soul of the Countess would have

been satisfied. But the grinning King of Terrors had stood by all the

time, saying, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."

Roma bought a wreath of wild flowers at a stall outside the cemetery

gates, and by help of a paper given to her in the office she found the

grave of little Joseph. It was in a shelf of vaults like ovens, each

with its marble door, and a photograph on the front. They were all

photographs of children, sweet smiling faces, a choir of little angels,

now singing round the throne in heaven. The sun was shining on them, and

the tall cypress trees were singing softly in the light wind overhead.

Here and there a mother was trimming an oil-lamp that hung before her

baby's face, and listening to the little voice that was not dead but

speaking to her soul's soul.

Roma hung her wreath on Joseph's vault and turned away. Going out of the

gates she met a great concourse of people. At their head was a Capuchin

carrying a black wooden cross with sponge, spear, hammer and nails

attached. Two boys in blue and white carried candles by his side. The

crowd behind were of the poorest, chiefly women and girls with shawls

and handkerchiefs on their heads. It was Friday, and they were going to

the Church of San Lorenzo to make the procession of the Stations of the

Cross. Scarcely knowing why she did so, Roma followed them.

The people filled the Basilica. Their devotion was deep and touching. As

they followed the friar from station to station they sang in monotonous

tones the strophes of the _Stabat Mater_.

"Ah, Mother, fountain of love, make me feel the strength of sorrow that

I may mourn with thee."

Their prayer seemed hardly needful. They were the starving wives and

daughters of men in prison, men in hospital, and reserve soldiers. Poor

wrecks on life's shore, thrown up by the tide, they had turned to

religion for consolation, and were sending up their cry to God.

When they had finished their course and ended their canticles of grief

they gathered about the pulpit and the Capuchin got up to preach. He was

a bearded man with a face full of light, almost of frenzy, and a cross

and a rosary hung from his girdle. He spoke of their poverty, their

lost ones, their privations, of the dark hour they were passing through,

and of answers to prayer in political troubles. During this time the

silence was breathless; but when he told them that God had sent their

sufferings upon them for their sins, that they must confess their sins,

in order that their holy mother, the Church, might save them from their

sins, there was a deep hum in the air like the reverberation in a great

shell.

A line of confessional boxes stood in each of the church aisles, and as

the preacher described the sorrows of the man-God, His passion, His

agony, His blood, the women and girls, weeping audibly, got up one by

one and went over to confess. No sooner had one of them arisen than

another took her place, and each as she rose to her feet looked calm and

comforted.

The emotion of the moment was swelling over Roma like a flood. If she

could unburden her heart like that! If she could cast off all the

trouble of her days and nights of pain! One of the confessional boxes

had a penitential rod protruding from it, and going past the front of it

she had seen the face of a priest. It was a soft, kindly, human face.

She had seen it before somewhere--perhaps in the Pope's procession.

At that moment a poor girl with a handkerchief on her head, who had

knelt down crying, was getting up with shining eyes. Roma was shaken by

violent tremors. An overpowering desire had come upon her to confess.

For a moment she held on to a chair, lest she should fall to the floor.

Then by a sudden impulse, in a kind of delirium, scarcely knowing what

she was doing until it was done, she flung herself in the place the girl

had risen from, and with a palpitating heart said in a tremulous voice

through the little brass grating:

"Father, I am a great sinner--hear me, hear me!"

The measured breathing inside the confessional was arrested, and the

peaceful face of the priest looked out at the hectic cheeks and blazing

eyes.

"Wait, my daughter, do not agitate yourself. Say the Confiteor."

She tried to speak, but her words were hardly audible or coherent.

"I confess ... I confess ... I cannot, Father."

A pinch of snuff dropped from the old man's fingers.

"Are you not a Christian?"

"I have not been baptized, but I was educated in a convent, and...."

"Then I cannot hear your confession. Baptism is the door of the Church,

and without it...."

"But I am in great trouble. For Our Lady's sake, listen to me. Oh,

listen to me, Father, only listen to me."

Although accustomed to the sufferings of the human heart, a measureless

pity came over the old priest, and he said in a kind and tender voice:

"Go on, my daughter. I cannot give you absolution, for you are not a

child of the Church; but I am an old man, and if I can help your poor

soul to bear its burden, God forbid that I should turn you away."

In a torrent of hot words Roma poured out her trouble, hiding nothing,

extenuating nothing, and naming and blaming no one. At length the

throbbing breath and quivering voice died down, and there was a moment's

silence, in which the dull rumble in the church seemed to come from far

away. Then the voice behind the grating said in tender tones:

"My daughter, you have committed no sin in this case and have nothing to

repent of. That you should be troubled by scruples shows that your soul

is pure and that you are living in communion with God. Your bodily

health is reduced by nervousness and anxiety, and it is natural that you

should imagine that you have sinned where you have not sinned. That is

the sweet grace of most women, but how few men! What sin there has been

is not yours; therefore go home, and God comfort you."

"But, dear Father ... it is so good of you, but have you forgotten...."

"Your husband? No! Whether you should tell him it is beyond my power to

say. In itself I should be against it, for why should you disturb his

conscience and endanger the peace of a family? Your scruples about

Nature coming to convict you, being without grounds of reason, are

temptations of the devil and should be put behind your back. But that

your marriage was a religious one only, that the other person (you did

right not to name him, my child) may use that circumstance to separate

you, and that your confession to your husband, if it came too late,

would come prejudiced and worse than in vain, these are facts that make

it difficult to advise you for your safety and peace of mind. Let me

consult some one wiser than myself. Let me, perhaps, take your secret to

a high place, a kindly ear, a saintly heart, a venerable and holy head.

Come again, or leave me your name if you will, and if that holy person

has anything to say you shall hear of it. Meantime go home in peace and

content, my daughter, and may God bring you into His true fold at last."

When Roma got up from the grating of the confessional she felt like one

who had passed through a great sickness and was now better. Her whole

being was going through a miraculous convalescence. A great weight had

been lifted off; she was renewed as with a new soul and her very body

felt light as air.

The preacher was still preaching in his tremulous tones, and the women

and girls were still crying, as Roma passed out of the church, but now

she heard all as in a dream. It was not until she reached the portico,

and a blind beggar rattled his can in her face, that the spell was

broken, so sudden and mysterious was the transition when she came back

from heaven to earth.