“Oh! Why do we not know the future? Why does fate give us no warning? How much time I lost in idle gossiping with girl friends, in needless outings and amusements, while I might have spent this time in talking with you, in gazing at you, in enjoying your caresses!
“The moon will appear in the sky, the nightingales will sing, but you will not hear them. The sun will rise, but its rays will not penetrate into your cold tomb. Life at best is but short, and now you yourself, of your own free will, have deprived yourself prematurely of its joys.
“Oh! This terrible, meaningless life! I am cold, I shiver, I cannot live in the world without you! All is pale, all is dark and tarnished around me. Nothing interests me, nothing pleases me. Alone! Alone! From now onwards, alone on this accursed earth.”
And the unhappy one repeatedly kissed the dead body, passionately embraced it, beating her head upon the sand.
Irene clearly heard the groans, curses, and cries that re-echoed in the ancient circus. Tears fell from her eyes. She forgot where she was, and started when Gzhatski, having also for some time kept his eyes fixed on the arena, broke the silence by a sudden remark.
“May I ask you an indiscreet question?” he asked, turning sharply round, and facing his companion. “Is it really true that you have decided to be a traitor to your faith, and become a Roman Catholic?”
“Why a traitor?” retorted Irene, a little angrily. “Orthodox Russians and Catholics believe alike in the Gospel, and that is the principal thing. As to dogmas, they were all invented by the perverted intelligence of crafty Byzantian Greeks, who did not understand the Gospel in the least, and dragged it down to their own level by eternal quibbling about words. Already, in my childhood, I studied with disgust the history of the Œcumenical Councils, and found nothing intelligent in them, except the decision of the seventh one, that there should be no more. Evidently all the theologians had become so entangled in their own disputes that they had grown desperate, and had at last realized that the more they talk the further they get from the truth.”
“But if you despise dogmas, and believe only in the Gospel, then why need you give up Orthodoxy?”
“I am leaving Orthodoxy because, among the Catholic clergy, I have found a man who is a true believer, who guides me, and helps me to unravel my own doubts, and to see the true meaning of life.”
“In other words, like so many Russian ladies, you have fallen into the hands of a clever Jesuit.”