Chapter XXI: Worship

A few days later Georgia was discharged from the hospital with the warning that she was convalescent, but not cured. She might by indiscretion in the ensuing weeks make herself a semi-invalid for the rest of her life; she might even bring about an acute relapse, in which case she would be likely to die.

She telephoned the old man that she was ready to report the following Monday, but he ordered her to stay away for at least another week, saying that her place was absolutely safe and her salary running on. She thanked him so earnestly for his kindness that he was minded to break into her secret, congratulate her on her engagement, tell her it was Stevens who had been kind and generous, but according to his promise he refrained. He supposed she would quickly discover the facts after their marriage anyway.

Jim was rodman with the surveying department of an important landscape gardening firm. Sometimes his employment kept him out in the country for two or three days at a time, but he turned in ten or twelve dollars every Saturday night and the family was more comfortable than it had ever been.

Georgia had in fairness to acknowledge that Jim had shown unexpectedly decent feeling. During her fortnight of convalescence he had assumed no right of proprietorship, made no demands. He slept on a lounge in the front room and never went to her room without first knocking. She wished that things might go on so indefinitely, but she knew that it was now a question of days, perhaps of hours, before she must reassume all the obligations of wifehood. She was getting well so rapidly and so evidently that soon she would have no excuse for not meeting them.

She was grateful to Jim for his courtesy; and they spoke to each other more kindly than ever before. They had ceased to act upon the theory that it did not much matter what one said to the other since the other had to stand it anyway. She had already taken over a year out of their lives together to show that she did not have to stand it.

Their example was not without its influence upon the other members of the family, Al and Mrs. Talbot, and there was far less wrangling and friction in the household.

Not without hesitating dread Georgia brought herself to the grilled shutter of Father Hervey's Gothic confessional box. She had been derelict in this as in other obligations; except for her brief and half delirious words of general contrition in the hospital, it was her first confession for three years.

Sinking to her knees she whispered, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned."

She began the prayer of the penitent. "I confess to Almighty God, to blessed Mary, ever Virgin, to blessed Michael, the archangel, to blessed John the Baptist, to the holy apostles Peter and Paul, and to all the saints, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word and deed, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault."

As she told her secret sins and pettiness to the priest, it seemed that the poison of them was being drained from her memory where they had become encysted. Her heart was cleaned and purified and lightened by the process of the confessional.

It is indeed doubtful whether any other ecclesiastical instrument since the world began has lifted so much sorrow from mankind.

Georgia's conspicuous and mortal sins were two--Doubt and her continued entertainment of that feeling for Mason Stevens which, since it was unlawful, the Church denominated Lust.

Doubt had followed naturally on absorption in worldly affairs, dangerous associations and reading, and neglect of her obligations to the Church. Especially reprehensible had been her frequent attendance at the Sunday Evening Ethical Club, where the very air was impregnated with dilute agnosticism.

In future she must be more careful in her choice of reading. Materialism and atheism were skillfully concealed in many a so-called sociological treatise. Not that sociology lacked certain elements of truth, but the danger for untrained minds lay in exaggerating their importance until they overshadowed greater truths. She would do well hereafter to leave sociology to sociologists.

The Sunday Evening Ethical Club was anathema. She must not go there again nor to any similar place where veiled socialism and anarchy were preached.

The confessor was rejoiced that her duty toward her husband and toward herself, for the two duties were one, had been so unmistakably revealed to her. Did the image of the other man ever trouble her mind?

Yes, Georgia acknowledged it did.

That was to be expected, in the beginning. But it would cease to trouble her before long. Did this image occur to her often?

Yes, she said, it did--very often, almost continually. It was not always actively before her, she explained, but it seemed never far away, as if it were just beneath the surface of her ordinary thoughts.

In that case it would be impossible to absolve her and she would remain in a state of mortal sin unless she would promise solemnly to refrain from all further thoughts of that man, and if ever they arose unbidden to banish them immediately, as an evil spirit is cast out from one possessed.

The priest waited, but the woman remained silent.

Did she remember, he asked severely, the words of our Savior, that "he who looketh in lust, committeth adultery." If she kept this idol in her heart, no priest had power to forgive her sins in His name. Her choice was before her, her Lord or her flesh.

Her head was bowed, her hands clasped before her, and she felt tears trickle slowly upon her knuckles.

"Oh, I promise, Father," she whispered, "to try never to think of him any more, and to put him out of my mind--when--the thought comes--unbidden."

The sincerity of her intention was evident in the tones of her voice and she was offered her penance; to be hereafter scrupulous in her religious observances; to hear one mass a week besides the Sunday mass for two months; to say her prayers night and morning always reverently on her knees, not standing or in bed; with the addition of five Our Fathers and Hail Marys night and morning until her penance was completed; to endeavor to influence her family to go with her to Sunday mass each week; and to examine her conscience daily.

The wise and gentle old priest had not been harsh with her, and she accepted humbly and gratefully the penance he imposed.

He prayed to God to regard her mercifully and to lead her to eternal life, then raising his right hand he recited over her the consecrated syllables of the sacrament, ending with the solemn words of peace, _Ego te absolvo a peccatis in nomine Patris_, here he made the sign of the cross, _et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen_. (I absolve thee from thy sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.)

Georgia left the confessional and went to the other part of the church to pray for a clean and strengthened spirit.

The Sunday following she went with Jim, Al and Mrs. Talbot to the cathedral where pontifical mass was celebrated. Encrusted with the accumulated observances of centuries of faith, it is, perhaps, the most intricate, aesthetic and impressive religious rite ever practiced by mankind.

From the archbishop seated on his throne, wearing his two-horned mitre in sign of the two testaments, his emerald ring as spouse of the Church, his silken tunic and dalmatic, his gloves of purity; with his shepherd's crosier in his hand, his woolen pallium over his shoulders, bound with three golden pins in memory of the three nails which fastened Him; from the archbishop crowned with gold to the least acolyte in surplice of white to recall His life, and cassock of black to recall His sorrow, the hierarchical symbolism is complex, mysterious, complete, beautiful.

When Georgia, genuflecting and signing herself with holy water, passed through the cathedral's double doors which prefigure the two sides of His being, she felt as if she were coming home again after a long, unhappy journey. The clustered shafts of the columns carried her eyes up to the high, darkened groins of the roof. The south sun streamed in colors through the saints of the windows. In the east, on the altar, the tall slender candles burned purely.

The incense puffed from the swinging censer, like smoke, familiar and pleasing to her. When the priest nine times uttered Kyrie eleison, the prayer of fallen humanity, she felt as if a friend were interceding for her before a great judge.

It made her proud to see the slow evolutions of the choir, regular and disciplined, to hear as if far away their solemn chants in stately Latin, to feel that she belonged to the same fabric of which they were a part.

As the service proceeded, the priests passing back and forth before the altar making obeisance and kissing its holy stone in ancient and regular form, the world outside receded continuously further from the people in the church, and they became increasingly merged into one single, splendid act of worship.

Holding the jewelled paten with its bread, above the jewelled chalice with its wine, the archbishop made three signs of the cross to commemorate the living hours of the crucifixion; then moving the paten he made two signs to signify the separation of His soul and body. The altar bell tinkled, a symbol of the convulsion of nature in that supreme hour. A great sigh went through the Church.