How beautiful, how poetical, seemed her future life, with its prayers, its meditations, its rapturous exaltation, its Gospel-readings, its soft singing, its incense! An enchanted existence in a Southern clime, a sweet, mystical dream, and then—death, followed by a probable awakening to some new and glorious life!
The news of Irene’s decision created a great sensation in her pension. Although nothing was definitely settled between herself and Père Etienne, everyone else knew which order she had chosen, and on which day she was to be received. Some even went so far as to name the dressmaker who was making her convent robes. They all constantly stared at Irene, and pointed her out to their visitors.
One afternoon, she happened to accompany Père Etienne to the hall-door, at the hour when the complicated business of afternoon tea was in progress. Small bamboo tables were scattered about between Chinese screens and immense palms, and at one of these tables, some distance away from the door, sat a good-natured, pleasant little Russian old lady, giving tea to a fellow-countryman, a tall, handsome, energetic, young-looking Russian of about forty, with an occasional grey thread in his thick, dark hair. The old lady, with a whispered remark, pointed Irene out to her visitor. He looked round with some curiosity, and then muttered, with a frown:
“What is this stupid, new fashion? Our women seem unable to look at a Roman priest without renouncing Orthodoxy!”
VI
A magnificent January moonlight night had wrapped the world in its silence. Rome was nestling in the warm, pale blue air; there were fantastic shapes and shadows everywhere; the magic of the darkness had wiped out all contrasts between ruins and modern buildings, and everything alike, churches, houses, streets, seemed unreal and enchanted.
Most beautiful of all, however, was the Colosseum, towards which Irene turned her steps that night. Like all foreigners, she had considered it her duty to see this famous ruin by moonlight, and had on a previous occasion visited it for this purpose, in company with several of the tourists staying at her pension. Their commonplace expressions of delight, however, had entirely spoilt the impression for her, and this time, tempted by the clear moonlight, she decided to go alone, and enjoy the unique beauty of the Colosseum in solitude.
Fate was kind to Irene. The enormous circus was entirely deserted but for the almost invisible shadows of a few distant tourists, and the outline of a tall man standing at the entrance, wrapt in admiration of the grandiose spectacle. Irene had just seated herself on a stone, when suddenly out of the shadows, as though from nowhere, sprang the figure of an old guide, declaiming pathetically, and addressing himself to Irene: