While listening to L⸺, Irene had observed the public, and had noticed many envious glances levelled at the singer. “Why should she have everything?” they seemed to say—“beauty, talent, splendid dresses, and jewels!” Irene would have liked to console them with the answer that every singer, every actress, indeed every great talent is endowed by fate not only with wealth and success, but also with a profound capacity for suffering. No one can sing well, play well, or write well, without living through moments of the deepest pain and anguish. Every real talent has known times of torturing depression when the heart in its agony has cried out to God: “Why hast Thou forsaken me? What have I done that I should suffer so?” And then, at the very darkest moment, suddenly, the veil is torn from their eyes! Truth, with her flaming torch, stands before them, and they understand that God sends them suffering to strengthen and ennoble their talent, that it may touch men’s hearts and show to tired wanderers on earth glimpses of heaven. Having once grasped this fact, men and women of talent humbly bow their heads before God’s will. Uncomplainingly and nobly they bear the insatiable yearning that tears their souls, accepting success with indifference, since they know that their own personal fame is but a secondary matter, and plays but a minor part in their mission on earth. Irene felt that there comes a moment in the life not only of every artist, writer, or musician, but also in that of every thinking human being, when nature asks him her great question: “Canst thou relinquish personal interests and help me in my work for humanity?” On his answer depends his soul’s serenity, the peace of his old age, and his faith in God and the justice of God’s ways. For should he indeed refuse, should he harden his heart against his brothers, a despair so boundless will take possession of his soul that there will be no escape or loophole but—suicide. Irene wondered, with a shudder, what her own answer to the fateful question would be. XV “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.