‘The Capuchins, in Piazza Barberini.’
The porter repeated the words to the cabman in his sternest tones, as if he were ordering that her Excellency should be taken directly to prison, and the cab rumbled out from under the deep archway.
She was not going for the sake of confession, for she was not conscious of having anything on her conscience, but it would be just as well to go through what would be little more than a form, in order to ask what her duty was. That seemed to be the point. At a very critical juncture in her life she turned neither to Giuliana Parenzo, her intimate friend, nor to Don Ippolito Saracinesca; he was Montalto’s friend, and she could not put him in the position of advising her to do what was precisely contrary to her husband’s wishes; and, moreover, courageous as he was, she did not feel that he was a fighting man. She went to the grim, uncompromising old monk; according to his lights he would tell her what he thought, without the slightest regard for her feelings.
Maria would not have admitted that Montalto’s hesitation filled her with contempt. How could she despise the husband who overwhelmed her with undeserved kindness and almost fantastic generosity?
I once knew a most refined and cultivated epicure who sometimes felt an irresistible craving for a piece of coarse dry bread and a raw onion, and would go out secretly and buy those things, and eat them greedily in the privacy of his own dressing-room, after locking the door lest his own servant should catch him. I have also heard of women who would rather be beaten black and blue by their husbands than be treated with indifference.
At that juncture Maria’s conscience and heart craved stronger and rougher stuff than was to be found in her husband’s nervous and hesitating character. She wanted some one to direct her authoritatively, even rudely, and she went to the Capuchin because she recognised in him the born fighting man as well as the uncompromising ascetic. If he thought she ought to defend herself energetically, he would tell her that she must fight, or be guilty of the mortal sin of sloth; if he believed that mortification of the flesh was necessary to the salvation of her soul she was sure that he would order her to walk barefoot from Rome to Naples, and would be very much surprised if she objected to such a penance. He had not outlived the thirteenth century, in which his Order had been founded. What had been good for sinners then was excellent for them now. If civilisation was to extend to morality and change the soul’s requirements, then the Church must change too, and as this was manifestly impossible, the hypothesis was contrary to sense. His reasoning was sound, though his application of the truth he demonstrated was sometimes severe to the point of being quite impracticable. He shook his head, for instance, when he was told that various bacilli flourished on the pavement of his church, and that it was not hygienic for penitents to kiss the stones twenty-five times between the door and the altar rail. He said there had been no bacilli when he was young, and that the floor was swept every day.
Maria asked for Padre Bonaventura. The lay brother did not know whether he was in the monastery at that hour. Would he kindly go and ask? Certainly, but would the lady kindly give her name? Maria hesitated.
‘Please say that a Roman lady is here who confessed to him ten days ago, and also last May.
The lay brother hastened away, slapping the damp marble pavement with his wet sandals, and the Countess did not wait long. The monk appeared almost immediately, and went before her to a confessional box, just bending his head a little as he passed her, but not even glancing at her unveiled face. Her message had explained enough, and he had no wish to discover her identity. He probably thought she had already failed in her good resolution and had come to tell him so.