To Odo, fresh from the pure air of Donnaz, where the faith of his
kinsfolk expressed itself in charity, self-denial and a noble decency of
life, there was something stifling in the atmosphere of languishing
pietism in which his mother's friends veiled the emptiness of their
days. Under the instruction of the Countess's director the boy's
conscience was enervated by the casuistries of Liguorianism and his
devotion dulled by the imposition of interminable "pious practices." It
was in his nature to grudge no sacrifice to his ideals, and he might
have accomplished without question the monotonous observances his
confessor exacted, but for the changed aspect of the Deity in whose name
they were imposed.
As with most thoughtful natures, Odo's first disillusionment was to come
from discovering not what his God condemned, but what He condoned.
Between Cantapresto's coarse philosophy of pleasure and the refined
complaisances of his new confessor he felt the distinction to be one
rather of taste than of principle; and it seemed to him that the
religion of the aristocracy might not unfairly be summed up in the
ex-soprano's cynical aphorism: "As respectful children of our Heavenly
Father it behoves us not to speak till we are spoken to."
Even the religious ceremonies he witnessed did not console him for that
chill hour of dawn, when, in the chapel at Donnaz, he had served the
mass for Don Gervaso, with a heart trembling at its own unworthiness yet
uplifted by the sense of the Divine Presence.
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