“Do not children begin by praying mechanically? This does not prevent their praying consciously and sincerely later on. It will be so with you also. Do not let this dismay you.”
Père Etienne did not hurry her to decide; but the thought of taking the veil had sown its seed in Irene’s heart.
“Yes,” she thought. “Père Etienne is right. After a certain age, it is best for unmarried women to bury themselves in convents. In the world, everything only irritates and tortures their souls: little children, with their adorable little faces, happy lovers, gazing tenderly into each other’s eyes, passionate music singing of love, all this happy, earthly life, in which they have no place. In a convent, on the other hand, far from worldly books, papers, news, rumours, their nerves are gradually quieted, and a regular life and untroubled sleep cures their tortured souls.”
A little earlier, the idea of being converted to the Roman faith would have frightened Irene; but, having lived a few months in Rome, she had grown to love the Catholic church and clergy. From the first days of her arrival, she had been interested in the students of the various theological colleges and seminaries, whom, in their picturesque costumes, some scarlet, some mauve, some black with coloured belts, one meets in Rome at every step. Irene loved to observe their intelligent faces, and their attentive, scrutinizing glances.
It seemed strange to her, at first, to see these future priests on the Pincio at the fashionable hour, contemplating elegant ladies in splendid carriages, or to meet them at teas and dinners in the fashionable hotels. But, on thinking this over, she came to the conclusion that this, to her, new and unaccustomed Catholic system of educating the priesthood was perfectly rational. In order to wield an influence over the great social world, it is indispensable to know its thoughts and ideals, and to share its manners, its bringing up, and its education.
In their free time the students see Rome, visit museums and picture-galleries, learn to distinguish one school of art from another, and to decipher the inscriptions and hieroglyphics on ancient sarcophagi. The theological colleges belong to various countries, and among the students—Englishmen, Germans, Frenchmen and Poles—are many people of good society, and sons of famous aristocratic families.
Irene reflected with some bitterness that only in Russia is the guardianship of religion left in the hands of grasping peasants. The very name of a seminarist is connected, in Russia, with the idea of coarseness. The education, the mental development of the priesthood is on the lowest level, and social life is entirely unknown to them. A youth who has barely finished his course at the seminary, is hurriedly ordained, and rushed off to some village in the depths of the country, where the sheep of his fold, rough, wild peasants, teach their young pastor to drink. Should he have the luck to be sent to a large town, his knowledge of life and of social ways and customs is so small that he can do no good whatever to his parishioners. On the contrary, he irritates them by clumsy tactlessness when hearing confessions, by wild sermons, and an unceremonious attitude towards the holiest things. He turns his church into a shop, where he sells ikons, candles, calendars, and countless other trifles, from which he tries to make as good an income as he can. Sick at heart, Irene remembered how priests at home, while holding out the cross to be kissed by worshippers before leaving church, continued mumbling a special service they were supposed to be celebrating after Mass in honour of some saint, standing the while with their backs to the ikon of the said saint, and hardly troubling to give the responses to the co-officiating deacon. She remembered also a scene witnessed at a service before a miracle-working ikon, in a provincial monastery, where the drunken priest and the equally drunken deacon had quarrelled and abused each other in the intervals between the prayers. Unhappily, indeed, such and similar occasions were none too rare, and they rankled in Irene’s mind, wounding her heart and shaking the foundations of her respect for Orthodoxy. Just before her departure from Russia, she had happened to be present at a little improvised religious meeting arranged at the house of a friend for a small group of schoolgirls of the higher social circles. They all arrived looking very excited and inspired, and their little youthful faces wore serious and attentive expressions. How much holiness and goodness could at such a moment have been sown in those innocent young souls by an enlightened pastor! And how did the Russian priest, invited to speak to these children, use the occasion? The serious, solemn old veteran mounted the platform and spoke for a whole hour about the advisability of eating during Lent, only the particular kind of butter prescribed for such periods, and the sinfulness of eating the ordinary kind!
Irene had watched the faces of the listening girls, and had seen reflected on them surprise, uncertainty, and at last flushes of indignation. They had come for a piece of bread, and had been given a stone.
Nothing of this kind was to be seen in Roman churches. The priests officiated with reverence at the altars, assisted by their little acolytes, while the rôle of the deacon and the sub-deacons and the choir was carried out by the congregation itself. Seated on chairs, with prayer-books in their hands, the people followed the service, gave the responses, and sang the prayers. Sermons were preached by gifted and eloquent preachers, usually in the evening, quite apart from any service, and these sermons always drew large and eager crowds of listeners.
In Russia, Irene had gained the impression that the Catholic Church was nothing so much as dry and scholastic, stifling all individual thought, and destroying all culture. In Rome, this erroneous idea was soon dissipated, and she realized that Catholicism had, on the contrary, through all the centuries of its existence, faithfully served the cause of progress. The Roman Popes had all been connoisseurs of art. They had surrounded themselves with great painters and sculptors, had given them orders, and had encouraged them in every possible way. They had collected and religiously preserved old books and manuscripts, had organized extensive excavations and researches, and had decorated the halls of the Vatican and the Lateran with the antique statues they had discovered.