Irene had to agree, and punctually at seven o’clock she presented herself at the Cardinal’s house. Her conscience reproached her a little for troubling a man so occupied with important affairs, but she had heard so much about this famous Cardinal that curiosity won the day over her scruples.
Cardinal R? was one of the most distinguished members of the Papal Court. He was nicknamed “le Pape manqué,” because at the last election he had received the greatest number of votes. His pronounced French sympathies, however, had, in the eyes of the other Catholic countries, stood in his way, with the result that, in answer to his election, the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador had announced the “veto” of the Austrian Emperor. The amazed Cardinals, though[238] they had long forgotten this ancient privilege of the Austrian crown, were obliged to submit, and the next candidate was elected Pope. It is a characteristic fact that Pius X. was so annoyed at his election that, on becoming Pope against his will, his first action was to annul for ever the Austrian right of “veto.”
Remembering this episode, Irene involuntarily felt a great respect for the man who had had the courage of his opinions and sympathies to the extent of paying for them by losing the Papacy. Such honesty seemed hardly in keeping with the traditional spirit of intrigue and deceit with which the Papal court was supposed to be permeated, and which Irene had so frequently heard discussed in Russia.
The Cardinal lived in a small detached house, within the precincts of the Vatican, and Irene was struck, by no means for the first time, by the resemblance between these Vatican houses and courtyards, and the inner courts and arch-priest’s dwellings of Russian monasteries. There was in both the same sense of chill and isolation and lifelessness.[239] Even the waiting-room into which a slow old servant led Irene was exactly like the room of a Russian monastic priest. The same clumsy wooden furniture upholstered in red velvet, the same religious pictures. The only things that were missing were the typical and inevitable strip of canvas that runs like a pathway right across the floors of all our Russian priestly houses, and the extraordinary variety of worsted cushions, with their wonderful patterns of fantastic animals and flowers, embroidered for our priests by pious Russian parishioners.
A young secretary twice passed through the waiting-room, throwing, each time, a quick but scrutinizing glance at Irene. Finally, unable to restrain himself any longer, he approached her, with a charming smile:
“Voudriez vous me dire, Mademoiselle,” he inquired, “le motif pour lequel vous désirez voir Son Eminence?”
Irene did not know how to answer. She really could not say that she had come simply to pacify a troublesome friend!
“J’ai entendu parler de la sympathie que[240] Son Eminence éprouve pour les Russes,” she stammered vaguely.
“Oh oui! Oh oui!” said the secretary, nodding his head. “Les sympathies de Son Eminence pour la Russie sont bien connues. Cependant, Mademoiselle, il me semble que vous devez avoir une raison plus … plus …”
The secretary was evidently at a loss to find the right word. Noticing that he was regarding her enormous muff with interest, Irene remembered that an attempt to assassinate a highly-placed personage, had recently been made in Rome.
“I understand your anxiety,” she remarked. “There are visitors who arrive with a bomb in their muffs!” With these words, as though accidentally, she made a movement with her muff, bringing it close to the secretary’s eyes. He glanced sharply into it, and was evidently appeased.
“Oh! certes, Son Eminence sera très satisfaite de vous voir, Mademoiselle,” he said. “Veuillez attendre quelques instants au salon; Son Eminence ne tardera pas à rentrer.”
[241]
The waiting-room, in the meantime, was filling with people. An old Monsignor entered, and Irene bowed to him. To her surprise, however, he not only did not reply, but never even glanced in her direction. Another priest entered, and again the same thing happened. Then came three Capuchin monks who made obvious efforts to look at anything but Irene, and sat down at the furthest possible point from her. The proud, sensitive woman felt deeply offended and annoyed.
“Do they take me for a leper?” she thought angrily, “or am I so hideous that it disgusts them to look at me?” Suddenly, however, a humorous idea flashed through her mind. Irene had so long ago left off thinking of herself as in any sense an attractive woman, that the sudden idea of being regarded by anyone in the light of a possible temptation, caused her, quite unexpectedly, to burst into a loud peal of laughter. The monks frowned, and Irene hastened to hide her laughing face in the muff that had so alarmed the young secretary.
At this moment there burst into the room, noisily, and talking in strident tones, two[242] lean and yellow English old maids with scant greyish hair, and enormous fashionable hats. Chattering fast and animatedly, they sat down exactly opposite the Capuchins, and robbed these victims of the only blank wall at which they could safely gaze without jeopardizing the salvation of their souls.
What were the poor monks to do? The devil evidently had awful designs on them that evening, and terrible temptation peered at them from every corner of the Cardinal’s waiting-room. As though by order, they all lowered their eyelids, and remained, as though turned into stone, with their gaze riveted on the floor.
The door opened, and Irene was asked to pass into the Cardinal’s presence.
A dimly illuminated ante-room led into the drawing-room. Here, the furniture was a little more comfortable, and there were pictures and flowers. The cardinal stood at his writing-table, not in his red robes, as Irene had expected, but in black with narrow red edgings. A somewhat worn red cardinal’s cap lay on the table. The great priest looked[243] at Irene in silence, and with a questioning expression. She approached, kissed the ring on his left hand, and thanked him for the honour he was conferring on her by receiving her. He smiled, and the man of the world awoke in him. Asking Irene to sit down on a small sofa, he began to question her about Russia, his words revealing a great knowledge of Russian Church matters. He seemed specially interested in a certain small group of Russian priests, who had recently been sent by the Synod to do penance in far-distant monasteries.
“Mais enfin, que veulent-ils? Que demandent-ils? Quel est le but de leur révolte?” asked the Cardinal.
“I think,” answered Irene simply, “that they wanted to convoke a council, with the object of reinstating the Patriarchy.”
The Cardinal frowned, and a shadow passed over his face. “Totally unnecessary,” he muttered somewhat hurriedly. “Totally unnecessary.” And he changed the subject, asking Irene what she had seen in Rome, and how she liked the Catacombs.
[244]
“I like the Russian catacombs much better,” she answered.
“Yes—I know—you mean the Kieff ones. But they date only from the ninth century. Remember,” exclaimed the Cardinal rapturously, “that here, in Rome, the earliest Christian martyrs are buried.”
Irene asked where the remains of the Apostle Andrew were preserved.
“Andrew?” repeated the Cardinal, stopping to think a moment. “Yes—the head is in the shrine of St. Peter’s, and the rest of the remains are distributed among various churches.”
“I ask this,” explained Irene, in answer to the Cardinal’s questioning glance, “because the Apostle Andrew is particularly dear to Russians, having been the first to teach us Christianity.”
“Of course—I know! Andrew, the brother of Saint Peter,” said the Cardinal with a subtle smile, as though wishing to underline the fact that Rome and Russia had received Christianity from two brothers. “Well, and what churches have you seen in Rome?”
[245]
Irene mentioned several of the most famous.
“Have you been to the church of Saint Cecilia?” asked the Cardinal a little uncertainly. “No?”—he was clearly disappointed. “You should go there without fail. It is my church—it has some very interesting subterranean passages.”
A tender smile suddenly illuminated the stern features of this old and serious man. Irene afterwards ascertained that Cardinal R? had spent his whole fortune on the restoration and preservation of the church of Saint Cecilia. She went to see this church on the following day. The ancient shrine gleamed with cleanliness and freshness. Small electric lamps burned before the marble statue of Saint Cecilia, and flowers stood before each of her images. Irene visited the underground sepulchre that holds the remains of the Saint, and was charmed with the elegant new chapel, its small, slim columns, and its exquisite mosaics in the Byzantine style. Thus might one decorate and beautify the tomb of a beloved daughter. On entering this chapel[246] Irene understood the true character of Cardinal R?, and knew that his stern exterior concealed a tender, loving heart, which, in the absence of personal family ties, had ardently attached itself to a poetical shadow, to someone’s pure and lovely image, to someone’s spotless and sacred memory.
Gzhatski was much pleased with the impression produced upon Irene by Cardinal R?, and announced that she must now make the acquaintance of Monsignor Lefrène, of whom all Rome was talking.
Monsignor Lefrène, a clever and highly intellectual Frenchman, had written a history of the Christian Church. The book had been published, sold, and widely read, when suddenly the Jesuit Fathers, who always play the part of defenders of Catholic purity, announced that Lefrène’s history was dangerous to the faithful.
“It contains nothing contrary to Catholic dogmas,” they wrote, “but its whole tone and tendency is offensive, and likely to do much harm.”
The book was put on the Index, and the[247] author had to do penance. Needless to say, this excess of zeal on the part of the Jesuit Fathers did much more harm than could ever have been done by poor Monsignor Lefrène. Few people, indeed, took the trouble to read the condemned book; but everyone talked about it, and the idea became prevalent that Lefrène held the same views as those for which the Orthodox Church had excommunicated Tolstoi, which probability proved that heresies had stolen into the fold of Rome. Believers spo............