It was when I was about sixteen years old.I read the Imitation and the Life of Saint Catherine.I fully believed in the miracles of the saints, and I was dying to have one of my own.
The least little accident that could have been twisted into a miracle would have carried me straight into the bosom of the church.
I had the real religious passion.It has passed away, and, as Isat here just now, I was wondering what had become of it!"Rowland had already been sensible of something in this young lady's tone which he would have called a want of veracity, and this epitome of her religious experience failed to strike him as an absolute statement of fact.
But the trait was not disagreeable, for she herself was evidently the foremost dupe of her inventions.She had a fictitious history in which she believed much more fondly than in her real one, and an infinite capacity for extemporized reminiscence adapted to the mood of the hour.
She liked to idealize herself, to take interesting and picturesque attitudes to her own imagination; and the vivacity and spontaneity of her character gave her, really, a starting-point in experience;so that the many-colored flowers of fiction which blossomed in her talk were not so much perversions, as sympathetic exaggerations, of fact.
And Rowland felt that whatever she said of herself might have been, under the imagined circumstances; impulse was there, audacity, the restless, questioning temperament."I am afraid I am sadly prosaic," he said, "for in these many months now that I have been in Rome, I have never ceased for a moment to look at Catholicism simply from the outside.
I don't see an opening as big as your finger-nail where I could creep into it!""What do you believe?" asked Christina, looking at him.
"Are you religious?"
"I believe in God."
Christina let her beautiful eyes wander a while, and then gave a little sigh.
"You are much to be envied!"
"You, I imagine, in that line have nothing to envy me.""Yes, I have.Rest!"
"You are too young to say that."
"I am not young; I have never been young! My mother took care of that.
I was a little wrinkled old woman at ten.""I am afraid," said Rowland, in a moment, "that you are fond of painting yourself in dark colors."She looked at him a while in silence."Do you wish,"she demanded at last, "to win my eternal gratitude?
Prove to me that I am better than I suppose.""I should have first to know what you really suppose."She shook her head."It would n't do.You would be horrified to learn even the things I imagine about myself, and shocked at the knowledge of evil displayed in my very mistakes.""Well, then," said Rowland, "I will ask no questions.But, at a venture, I promise you to catch you some day in the act of doing something very good.""Can it be, can it be," she asked, "that you too are trying to flatter me? I thought you and I had fallen, from the first, into rather a truth-speaking vein.""Oh, I have not abandoned it!" said Rowland; and he determined, since he had the credit of homely directness, to push his advantage farther.The opportunity seemed excellent.
But while he was hesitating as to just how to begin, the young girl said, bending forward and clasping her hands in her lap, "Please tell me about your religion.""Tell you about it? I can't!" said Rowland, with a good deal of emphasis.
She flushed a little."Is it such a mighty mystery it cannot be put into words, nor communicated to my base ears?""It is simply a sentiment that makes part of my life, and I can't detach myself from it sufficiently to talk about it.""Religion, it seems to me, should be eloquent and aggressive.
It should wish to make converts, to persuade and illumine, to sway all hearts!""One's religion takes the color of one's general disposition.
I am not aggressive, and certainly I am not eloquent.""Beware, then, of finding yourself confronted with doubt and despair!
I am sure that doubt, at times, and the bitterness that comes of it, can be terribly eloquent.To tell the truth, my lonely musings, before you came in, were eloquent enough, in their way.What do you know of anything but this strange, terrible world that surrounds you?
How do you know that your faith is not a mere crazy castle in the air;one of those castles that we are called fools for building when we lodge them in this life?""I don't know it, any more than any one knows the contrary.
But one's religion is extremely ingenious in doing without knowledge.""In such a world as this it certainly needs to be!"Rowland smiled."What is your particular quarrel with this world?""It 's a general quarrel.Nothing is true, or fixed, or permanent.
We all seem to be playing with shadows more or less grotesque.
It all comes over me here so dismally! The very atmosphere of this cold, deserted church seems to mock at one's longing to believe in something.
Who cares for it now? who comes to it? who takes it seriously?
Poor stupid Assunta there gives in her adhesion in a jargon she does n't understand, and you and I, proper, passionless tourists, come lounging in to rest from a walk.And yet the Catholic church was once the proudest institution in the world, and had quite its own way with men's souls.
When such a mighty structure as that turns out to have a flaw, what faith is one to put in one's poor little views and philosophies?
What is right and what is wrong? What is one really to care for?
What is the proper rule of life? I am tired of trying to discover, and I suspect it 's not worth the trouble.Live as most amuses you!""Your perplexities are so terribly comprehensive," said Rowland, smiling, "that one hardly knows where to meet them first.""I don't care much for anything you can say, because it 's sure to be half-hearted.You are not in the least contented, yourself.""How do you know that?"
"Oh, I am an observer!"
"No one is absolutely contented, I suppose, but I assure you I complain of nothing.""So much the worse for your honesty.To begin with, you are in love.""You would not have me complain of that!""And it does n't go well.There are grievous obstacles.