It is true that the society had also imposed on its members the duty of visiting the mothers. This duty, however, Irene had point blank refused to take upon herself. It was preposterous, she had thought. What would happen if she were by chance to arrive somewhere at a moment when a child was being born? She would hear the mother’s groans and see the red, wrinkled infant. She did not even know very exactly how it all happens, and she had shuddered at the very idea of witnessing anything so nauseating. In general, she had always felt a natural disgust for everything physical, and had never brought herself to glance without a shudder at the simplest anatomical design. In the case in point, indeed, she had preferred to knit ten extra counterpanes rather than see one of the babies for whom they were destined.
She now remembered also how she had always loved to escape from real life into the enchanted realms of novels and poems. People in books were always so charming, and all their thoughts and actions so comprehensible. They all invariably had a clear, well-defined object in life, and strove through a few hundred engrossing pages to attain this object. They were all noble and generous, and their lives were bright and beautiful. What interesting and delightful moments Irene had passed in their society! They had made her laugh and cry and suffer and rejoice, and had entertained her with the brilliancy of their wit. How dull and colourless real people had appeared beside these heroes and heroines of fiction. Real people never seemed to know for what purpose they existed, nor what to do with their lives; their characters were nearly always illogical and uninteresting; they were married stupidly and aimlessly, and generally to the wrong people; they just as aimlessly bore children, and did nothing but reproach them for having exactly the same faults as themselves; if, however, one of the children who had caused them nothing but torments and trouble died, they made a terrific fuss, wrung their hands in despair, and cursed God. How could Irene respect such people? Ah! if she had met in real life a Prince Andrey, from “Peace and War,” how passionately she would have loved him! And what an intimate friend she would have made of Pushkin’s Tatiana! How they would have understood each other! How much they would have had in common! Irene had often assured her friends in fun that no man in the world appealed to her as much as Sherlock Holmes.
Thinking over all this, Irene suddenly, with a shock, realized that Gzhatski was perfectly right, that she had really never lived, but had only slumbered and dreamt, and had in this way let her youth slip by. Having now understood her own illness, was there still time for a cure, for a return to normal life? Could she renounce her contempt for humanity? Could she try to love human nature, in spite of its defects? Could she live in the world, sharing its joys and sorrows? Or was it too late? Was not Père Etienne, perhaps, persuading her to take the veil just for that self-same reason? Did not the clever priest, perhaps, regard her simply as a nervous patient, and was he not possibly trying by every possible ruse to lure her into a convent as one lures lunatics into an asylum? The thought was painful.
Gzhatski, in the meantime, having proposed to Irene in jest, knowing perfectly well that she would refuse, had suddenly, once the proposal was made and rejected, begun to think seriously about marrying her. He had for some years past quite given up his old dreams of marriage, but having during the autumn previous to his Italian journey spent two lonely months in the country, away from all his friends, alone with an old devoted but badly trained servant, Gzhatski had often meditated with some sadness on the failure of his cherished plans, and on the lonely old age that awaited him. Irene’s innocence and simple-mindedness appealed to him, and emphatically as he assured her that indifference to wealth and position was a symptom of disease, this particular symptom was, nevertheless, in her case, pleasing to him. Her moral purity reminded him of his mother, though, indeed, one could hardly imagine two more diverse characters: the one deeply and passionately religious, the other embittered and indifferent even to her shattered ideals.
Taking advantage of the impression produced on Irene’s mind by the “Life of Saint Amulfia,” and her resultant disillusionment on the subject of convents, Gzhatski persuaded her to venture a little out of her seclusion, and to see something of Roman society. The season was in full swing. Crowds of English and American tourists were besieging the hotels, and were being pitilessly fleeced. The Costanzi theatre engaged one famous singer after another, and great society hostesses vied with each other in the brilliancy of their receptions. Armies of peasant women and their children, in picturesque national costumes, wandered down from the Albanian hills to sell flowers to the forestieri (foreigners). Old Rome seemed to have grown young again, and basked gaily in the golden spring sunshine.
Gzhatski took Irene to the Horse Show, organized by the fashionable “Fox-hunters’ Club.” Fox-hunting, the recreation of the most aristocratic Roman circles, is a feature of the winter season. The perfect roads traversing the Campagna, the splendid views, the fresh air, the invigorating canter across the plain, a little harmless flirtation with the most elegant of equestriennes, all this is dear to the heart of the fashionable Roman. As to the foxes, they suffer but little at the hands of their aristocratic hunters!
“The fox is an old Roman,” the more sincere sportsmen often frankly admit—“he knows every inch of the Campagna, much better than we do, and rarely lets himself be caught.”
In answer to any question about the hunt, Roman “High Life” almost invariably asserts that the day was superb. “At the start, a fox was raised, but managed to evade the hunters, and finally escaped.”
Evil tongues, indeed, assert that these foxes are mechanical, and are wound up and started before every hunt! But then—what strange rumours will not evil tongues invent! The sportsmen are never discouraged, and it is under their auspices that the annual Horse Show is organized.
On arriving at the Tor di Fiorenza, Irene was greeted by a scene as picturesque as it was new and unfamiliar to her. The races were held in a valley between low hills, the obstacles being scattered not only over the level ground, but also on the grassy slopes. The course, indeed, was a bewilderingly winding one, up-hill and down-hill, the last and most difficult barrier being placed at a considerable height, followed by a steep incline down to the winning-post.