“Let us go to the Palazzo M?,” suggested Gzhatski to Irene one bright, sunny morning towards the middle of March. “They have a very interesting family festival there to-day, and except in Rome you will nowhere see anything similar.”

So they drove to the old quarter of Rome, where most of the palaces of the Roman aristocracy are to be found.

The exterior of the Palazzo M? was in no sense strikingly beautiful. It was built in something like a semi-circle, which fact seemed in old times, when the street was narrow, perfectly natural. Now, however, the Corso being straight and broad, the effect is peculiar. At some time in the Middle Ages, Saint Philip of Neri had worked a miracle in this palace, having brought back to life a dead child of the M? family.

Saint Philip had entered the room a moment after little Paolo M? had breathed his last, and had found the parents sobbing with grief and despair over the body of their beloved boy. Touched by their sorrow, the Saint had commanded the departed one to arise, upon which Paolo had immediately come back to life. “Why have you brought me back to earth?” he had asked his parents, in tones of reproach. “I was so happy there!” Struck by these words, the parents had prayed Saint Philip to let Paolo die again, and the Saint, with a wave of his hand, had released the innocent young soul, that it might fly back to a happier world.

This miracle had been performed on a 16th of March, and, to the present day, the top floor of the palazzo, with the chapel in which the remains of Saint Philip repose, is thrown open every year on that date to the people of Rome. In an unbroken stream the neighbouring poor with their little children, monks and nuns, as well as the inevitable tourists, ascend and descend the splendid staircase. The entrance to the palace is decorated for the occasion with flags and brightly-coloured draperies. In the doorway stands a servant in gold-embroidered uniform, the courtyard is crowded, and heads peep from all the little windows of the third floor.

The rooms leading to the chapel are low, with wood-panelled ceilings, narrow windows, and furniture of the Middle Ages. The chapel itself is brilliantly illuminated. Women, one after another, fall on their knees and pray fervently. This is a children’s festival, particularly dear to mothers. Monks and nuns repeat the legend in detail to the assembled crowd, the Roman poor listening reverently and with emotion, the tourists looking on with mocking smiles.

On the same day, in the great reception rooms below, the princely M? family receives its friends, from four to seven. The family is of ancient and historic lineage, tracing its origin back to pre-Christian Rome. Like all the rest of the Roman aristocracy the princes are religious Catholics, firm in their allegiance to the Vatican.

Irene’s gaze wandered in mute admiration round the enormous entrance-hall, with its magnificent painted ceiling, its antique statues, and the crimson baldaquin at one of its walls. Only the most ancient families in Rome possess such a baldaquin. Under it stands the chair reserved in old days for the use of the Pope, who frequently honoured noble Romans with his visits. Across the balustrade surrounding this throne, footmen, in most wonderful blue and cerise liveries, were laying the wraps of arriving visitors, to whom at the same time a house-steward in black dress clothes and a heavy chain was handing a visitors’ book for signature. Beyond the hall could be seen long enfilades of rooms, with magnificent tapestries, pictures, statues, and many other ancient treasures of art not to be met with elsewhere. Irene particularly noticed a jewel-case in the shape of a girl’s figure carved in wood, and coloured.

The guests were assembled in the principal drawing-room, an immense room with a painted wooden ceiling of the fifteenth century. The walls were hung with crimson brocade, and covered with pictures by old masters. The portiÈres were of heavy crimson velvet, the furniture was massive and gilt. In the middle of the room, over the red felt with which the floor was covered, lay two large white bear-skins, the only compatriots Irene met at this reception.

The whole M? family was present, grandfather, grandmother, and grandson (a handsome boy of fifteen, dressed in the uniform of one of the Roman colleges)—even an eight-months-old infant in a film of white lace, presiding majestically on the knees of his nurse, an Albanian peasant woman, attired in her picturesque national costume. The tiny prince seemed to be enjoying himself more than anyone else, energetically and with gurgles of delight pulling the moustache of every man and tearing off the veil of every lady who bent over him! It was charming to see the indescribable tenderness with which the whole family regarded this latest representative of their ancient race!

In general, the festival was patriarchal and aristocratic to the highest degree—aristocratic in the true fashion of ancient times, when the nobles, really loving the people, befriended them and opened their doors to them on all festive occasions. It was so in all countries, and that wholly un-Christian and senseless gulf which now separates one class from another only came into being with the formation of the middle class, uncertain of itself, having no ground under its feet, dragging hopelessly after the aristocracy, and kicking back with hatred and repulsion the lower classes from which it had so recently risen.

At one end of the drawing-room stood a tea table, and, according to a charming Roman custom, tea, chocolate, and ices were offered to the visitors. Italians can drink hot chocolate and eat ices almost at the same time, without dying!

Irene sat down in a corner, and watched the scene before her with delighted interest. She thought of how, in Petrograd, anything connected with Catherine the Great or Alexander I. was considered ancient. Such antiquity might, here, in this Roman Palace, be looked upon as positively modern! For the first time, Irene realized the youth of her own country. The proud girl, considering herself on an equality with the greatest Russian families, felt a little humiliated at the thought that the ancestors of her princely hosts once walked about the Forum in togas, took part in the government of ancient Rome and in the creation of a great art and a great literature, and gave their laws to the whole civilized world. She tried to picture to herself the Russia of that time: a wilderness peopled by savage hordes in skins of wild beasts, nomad tribes, wandering through forests and swamps and deserts.…

Her dreams were interrupted by the old Prince, who, noticing that she was alone, and prompted by his antique and aristocratic sense of hospitality, approached to entertain her. Irene broached the subject of the legend, and naÏvely added that she supposed the chapel and adjoining rooms were only opened for this one day every year.

“No, indeed,” answered the Prince with a smile—“the rooms are in constant use, and our Chaplain holds daily services in the chapel.”

Irene felt confused, and at the same time a curious feeling of envy came over her.

“How happy these people are,” she thought, to have lived for so many centuries in the same town, in the same house, surrounded by legends and traditions and the shadows of their ancestors! All this is real—they are not masquerading in strange costumes and beliefs and customs, like emigrants of all nationalities, who spend their lives in travelling North, South, East and West, in search of new sensations and impressions. There came to Irene’s mind the thought of one of her friends, a girl with a mania for having herself photographed in the national costume of every country she visited. An entire little shelf in Irene’s Petrograd drawing-room was covered with frames from which smiled the young girl’s round, laughing, purely Slavonic little face, here under the fez of a Crimean Tartar maid, there under a Spanish mantilla, elsewhere in the guise of a Neapolitan fisher-girl. Had not Irene’s own wish to enter a convent also been nothing much more than a desire to dress up in a picturesque costume?

These thoughts reminded her of PÈre Etienne, and on returning to her pension, Irene wrote and asked him to come and see her. She had seen very little of him lately. PÈre Etienne felt that something had happened to change Irene’s ideas during her stay at Assisi—but, however much he questioned her, he couldn’t discover what that something had been. Seeing that she had drifted into social life, he regretfully left off paying her his daily visits. Like all true pastors, he always attached himself to his spiritual children, and was sincerely grieved when the circumstances of life separated him from them. The warm-hearted old man now consoled himself with the thought that he had been mistaken in taking convent life to be Irene’s vocation, and that she would be happier if she married her compatriot. In his heart, however, there still lingered an intuition that would not let him believe in matrimonial happiness for her. No one understands human nature better than a clever priest, who hears countless confessions and looks into the deepest recesses of the countless souls that are laid bare before him.

On receiving Irene’s invitation, he went to her immediately, and they spent a charming evening together. The convent in the Via Gallia was not even mentioned. They spoke of Saint Philip of Neri, of his life and his pupils, of miracles and prayer.

The following day Irene awoke in a pious mood, and put off Gzhatski, who had arranged to take her to some local function. Gzhatski, clever strategist that he was, guessed what had happened, and hastened to create a diversion. He disappeared for a time, made mysterious arrangements, and kept mysterious appointments, and after three days, arrived suddenly to inform Irene that Cardinal R? would receive her in audience at seven o’clock that evening.

“Receive me!” exclaimed Irene in surprise. “But why should I go to him?”

“Why not make the acquaintance of a Cardinal, once he is kind enough to wish to receive you?” answered Gzhatski. “You have decided to join the Catholic Church, and you ought to know more of its priesthood. PÈre Etienne alone is insufficient—there are plenty of other enlightened and clever men among the Roman priests—they are by no means all furious fanatics!”

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