“It is the one thing in which I would have my country-women imitate the Roman ladies,” Mr. Vane said— “in their sober costume for the church.”
The sun was scorching when they went out, and shone so brightly on the gold ground of the mosaic front of Santa Pudentiana that the figures there flickered as if painted on flame. But the sunken court had a hint of coolness, and when they entered the church they were
very glad to have the light wraps the Signora had told them to bring; for the air was chilly and damp, the floor being a full story below the level of the modern street, and not a ray of sunshine entering, except what got in by the cupola. This was enough to light beautifully the mosaics of the tribune, where it is hard to believe one does not see a balcony, with the Saviour and the saints looking over, so real are the forms.
The Mass which they had come to hear was, however, nearly ended, having begun with a promptitude unusual in Rome. In a few minutes the priest left the altar, the people went away, and the lights were put out. Seeing two or three persons enter the sanctuary, and go to look through an open panel in the side wall, our party followed them, and found that the panel opened into a chapel, or chamber, beside the grand altar. This chamber was so draped as to be perfectly dark, except for the candles that burned at the head and feet of the dead nun lying there. She lay close to the open panel, and in sight of the altar where the divine Sacrifice had just been offered for her, if her eyes could have seen it. It was the emaciated but beautiful form of a woman of middle age, dressed in her religious costume, with her hands crossed on her breast, the face composed into an expression of unspeakable solemnity
and peace. Awe-stricken and silent, they stood and gazed at her. They had come here from charity, indeed, but rather to temper their too earthly happiness with a merely serious thought, as one cools a heated wine with ice, making it more delicious so, than from any profound recognition of the dreadfulness of death and the perils of life. But these sealed lips spoke volumes to them, and the dark and silent church, now quite deserted, chilled them like the valley of the shadow of death through which this soul had passed—whither? It was a life dedicated to God, and given up assisted by all the sacred rites of religion; yet that face told them that death had not been met with any presuming confidence, and that before the soul of the dying religious the stern simplicity and clearness of the primitive Christian law had stood untempered by any glozings.
Marion was the first to move. Seeing Bianca look very pale, he drew her away, and the others followed.
How strange the gay sunny world looked to them when they went out! The unexpected solemnity of the scene had so drawn their minds from everything else that they had been chilled and darkened in soul as well as in body. Yet, though the warmth and light were grateful to them, they had no wish to cast entirely off that sombre impression, and would have remained in the church to pray awhile, but for the imprudence, in a sanitary point of view. Seeing, however, the door of the little church opposite, the Bambino Gesù, open, they went in there a few minutes. This church of the Infant Jesus is attached to a convent of nuns, and a company of young girls were just entering from the sacristy to
make their First Communion, ranging themselves inside the sanctuary. They were dressed alike in white cashmere robes, and long silk veils in such narrow stripes of blue and white as to look like plain blue, fastened with wreaths of red and white roses. Floating slowly in with folded hands and fair, downcast faces, they knelt in a double ring about the sanctuary, leaned forward on the benches set for them, and remained motionless as statues, awaiting the coming of the Lord for the first time into their innocent hearts, as yet uncontaminated and untried by the world. At each end of the line a little boy, dressed as an angel, stood bearing a torch. For a week or ten days these girls had all been in retreat in the convent, instructed by the nuns; and when the Mass and their last breakfast together should be over, they would separate to their own homes, never to meet again, perhaps. Their parents and friends awaited them now in the church.
When the household of Casa Ottant’-otto went home, they found a pile of letters and papers from America awaiting them, which they read and talked over in pauses of the dinner. There were business letters—short, if not sweet; long family letters, such as make one feel at home again, with all their familiar details and touching reminiscences; there were items of public news, descriptions of pageants in which the New World had rivalled, or surpassed, the Old; of fierce storms that had found the western continent a fitting stage to sweep their tragic skirts across; and of inundations from great crystalline rivers to which the classic Tiber is a mere muddy sewer. There was nonchalant mention of immense frauds, of fires that had devoured whole streets
and squares, and reduced scores of persons to penury in a few hours, and of gigantic schemes for building up or pulling down. There were accounts of some popular indignation, in which the people had spoken without riot and been listened to, and of authority enforced, where law had conquered without bloodshed or treachery; of public sympathy with great misfortunes where no calculation of merit or reward cramped the soul of the givers, but the heart overflowed generously into the hand. In fine, there was a month’s summary of such events as those with which America, the fresco painter of the age, sketches her long, bold lines and splashes her colors on the page of time.