“Let us help him,” said the charitable Saint Nicholas.
“No, that is impossible,” replied the Reverend Cassian scornfully. “We should soil our white robes.”
But Saint Nicholas paid no attention to him, and set to work to help the peasant. Both horse and cart were soon standing safely in the dry roadway, but several splashes of mud had stained the snowy whiteness of the Saint’s raiment.
When God heard of this occurrence, He ordered that from thenceforward the memory of Saint Nicholas was to be honoured twice a year, but that of the Rev. Cassian only once in four years. (The festival of Saint Cassian falls on the 29th of February!)
“Vladimir Solovyof,” added Monsignor Lefrène, “told me this legend in that half-mocking tone which is nearly always assumed by Frenchmen when speaking of le bon Dieu, but which, in Russian, is quite inadmissible.” He explained the legend as follows: Saint Nicholas represents the Catholic Church, always warmly attached and interested in its followers and never afraid of touching dirt when there is a chance of saving a sinner. Cassian, on the other hand, is the Orthodox Church, cold and haughty, indifferent to her people, and only anxious to retain her outer immaculacy.
Irene was greatly drawn to Monsignor Lefrène and with her usual impulsiveness, feeling a profound confidence in him, she made him a confession of her own personal credo, that same credo that Père Etienne had once waved away with a smile. Lefrène listened with his customary half-satirical smile, and answered quietly:
“Your faith has nothing whatever in common with Christianity. If anything it is Biblical, of the Old Testament. We Christians abandoned all such ideas nineteen centuries ago.”
Irene blushed. “It is as if they had talked it over between them,” she thought. “Père Etienne said my faith suited the Samoyedes, and this man says it is of the Old Testament.”
“True Christians,” explained Lefrène, noticing Irene’s perplexity, “never expect rewards or justice in this world, because they realize that such results are only possible beyond the grave. To pagans and Old Testament Jews, the idea of a future life had not presented itself—hence, in the book of Job, for instance, Job, having patiently borne all his sufferings, expects God, in justice, to cure him of his leprosy, give him new wealth, new children, a new wife. No, for that matter, he kept his old, former wife, and this very circumstance makes me think that Job was not nearly as happy as the Bible would have us believe.”
The same evening, telling Gzhatski about her visit to Lefrène, Irene mentioned the shade of displeasure that had crossed the face of the Monsignor, and similarly, a few days previously, that of Cardinal R⸺, at the mention of the suggested Orthodox Council.