The same evening, Irene announced to PÈre Etienne that all her doubts were at an end, and that she had decided to take the Veil. She would now only ask him to find her a suitable convent.

“There are many orders of nuns in Rome,” answered the Father, reflectively, “each with a particular aim and purpose. There are sisters who nurse the sick, and others who educate children. It seems to me that the order most suited in your case is that of the Soeurs Mauves. They lead very secluded lives, pray a great deal, and keep watch, night and day, over the Holy Sacrament. You can see them every day at Vespers in their Church of Santa Petronilla in the Via Gallia.”

Trembling with emotion, Irene turned her steps towards this convent, half afraid of her own first impression. When she entered, the church was almost empty. A few stray old men and old women were dreaming on chairs, waiting for the service. Like most modern Roman churches, Santa Petronilla was ablaze with gilding and profusely decorated with pictures. On either side, up above, were galleries of quite theatrical appearance, painted mauve and white, the colours of the convent. A transparent, high, carved partition divided the church into two parts: the one nearest the entrance for the public, the other, nearest the altar, for the nuns. At present, all was dark and empty, only one feeble taper was burning on the altar.

Irene took a seat in the first row, quite close to the partition, and prepared to contemplate her future surroundings. It was a long time before the silence was broken by the slow, dull sound of the church bells. The altar was suddenly brightly illuminated, and a procession of nuns appeared through the door. They entered in couples, knelt for a moment, one couple at a time, before the altar, and then slowly, gracefully, with soundless footsteps, made their way to their places. They were dressed in white robes with long trains, and wide mauve borders. White veils hid their faces, and fell at the back in graceful folds over their trains. These veils were so thick, that it was impossible to distinguish the ages of their wearers. With soft white hands, the nuns clasped the golden crosses on their breasts, as they slowly sank into their places, threw back their veils, and, directing their gaze to the altar, remained immovable in the most graceful of poses. Somewhere in the distance an organ began to play, and an invisible choir sang a prayer, or, rather, a beautiful Italian operatic air.

Something long forgotten stirred restlessly in Irene’s heart. “But these are my vestal virgins!” she thought, with a thrill of emotion—those beloved vestal virgins that had always so deeply appealed to her imagination, and whose disappearance she had so often regretted. It seemed to her that no reforms and no amount of progress could ever give back to women the high position occupied in ancient Rome by the handmaidens of the goddess Vesta. Everyone had bowed before them; with a movement of the hand they had the power to pardon prisoners condemned to death; they were present at all ceremonies, games, and performances, and formed the principal ornament of the Courts of the Roman Emperors. And here, suddenly, Irene had found them again, less mighty and less dazzling, perhaps, but more mysterious instead, and more poetical.

The service continued, and the church gradually filled with people: elegant ladies, dirty workmen, little old men and little old women, even small children brought there by religious nurses. They all joined in the hymns, and sang with the nuns. There was something strange and touching in the mingling of all those hoarse, old, untrained voices with the soft music of the choir, descending, like the song of angels, from the mauve gallery. Many of the worshippers were weeping bitterly, on their knees. From time to time the singing stopped, and one of the nuns, opening a prayer-book, read a prayer, in a soft, melodious voice. Irene watched her future companions with great emotion. They seemed so dignified, so refined, so completely comme il faut; life among them, indeed, promised to be charming. Nothing in their habits and manners could ever jar on her or shock her. She remembered, with a shudder, the Russian nuns who wander from village to village, collecting money for the building of churches, lifting their dirty dresses high, and showing their equally dirty, red, rough, thick peasant legs.

The service came to an end. Slowly, gracefully, the white dignified figures of the Soeurs Mauves floated away and disappeared. In their places appeared several fat, active little nuns, in short black robes, with enormous mauve bows and little white veils. They extinguished the candles, running from one candlestick to another, never forgetting their reverend genuflexion when passing the altar.

“Serving-women,” thought Irene, and the thought pleased her that she would not, even in the convent, cease to be a lady accustomed to the services of a maid. For a moment she was ashamed of the thought, but immediately justified herself: “Of course all idea of dirty work is impossible in those long snowy robes, those white slippers, and floating, shimmering veils!”

It was a still, warm evening, and the stars were beginning to show themselves in the dark blue sky when Irene left the church. There was peace in her soul as she breathed in the balmy Southern air. “Thank God!” she said to herself. “At last I have found my vocation. What matter if I do not sufficiently believe? The principal thing is to sing, to read prayers, and to touch the hearts of all those unhappy, suffering people, who come to pray with the nuns, believing in their purity and saintliness.”

Almost all unmarried women of a certain age suffer secret torments from the fact that they have actually no place in society. Irene was no exception to this rule, and she was happy at the thought that now, at last, she might be of some use in the service of humanity. To have a special uniform—an idea always dear to the Russian heart—was also a great attraction. In imagination she tried on the picturesque dress of those modern vestal virgins, making up her mind to be graceful, to float about like a white spirit, to sing, and to read prayers melodiously.

From that day, Irene never missed a single evening service in the Via Gallia. The nuns were inaccessible to outsiders, and no stranger was ever admitted to the convent—an additional fact to play upon Irene’s fancy. The convent stood on a hill. Luxurious palms and fragrant Roman pines leaned over its high garden walls, and Irene saw, in imagination, the small, interior courtyard, with its covered verandah, its slim, carved columns, its murmuring fountain, its Southern foliage and flowers. She pictured to herself the early morning; she heard the measured tones of the melodious convent bells calling the sisters to prayer; then she thought of the evening, of a golden Roman sunset, a purple sky, faint, glistening stars, and the Ave Maria.…

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!”

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