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[260] 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[261] 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 th............