The Birds Fall Down by Rebecca West Page A

her head, sighed, stiffened herself, and went to her seat, for he had called out: “Alexander Gregorievitch, Alexander Gregorievitch. This afternoon we were talking of the English Church and the way it is ordered for the enjoyment of the rich. I do not think I explained how far this goes. Incredible as it may seem, in the English Church the powers of appointing priests to parishes are owned by the rich, and they appoint whom they please and pay them themselves. The Bishops are supposed to have some say in the matter, but you can imagine how much of a safeguard that is in such a corrupt society. My son-in-law took me to his club, the Athenaeum, and there were Bishops in that worldly place, behaving like any of the other prosperous shaven and combed and oiled and tailored worldlings who frequent that place. It is a horrible traffic. The office of priest can be bought by a rich person for a certain sum, calculated according to the capital value of the income, just as in Russia lawyers and stockbrokers can buy partnerships in firms. Nothing is lacking to make the arrangement disgusting. In any English newspaper you may find a series of advertisements offering these priestly appointments, which are called ‘Livings,’ an ironical name for a sign of spiritual death. There is actually a journal published in London wholly devoted to this shameless simony, and it is typical of English hypocrisy that it bears an innocuous title, ‘The Church Preferment Register.’ What could sound more virtuous? What in fact could be more depraved?”
    “Well,” said Monsieur Kamensky, placidly, “it’s always been a problem how to provide for the material needs of the clergy.”
    “Nowhere else has such a deplorable solution been accepted. When I think of this shameful system, carried on under the cloak of piety, I am the more enraged by my recollections of those delegations. Those delegations! Those accursed delegations of English clergymen, which persist in presenting themselves at St. Petersburg and Moscow, harping shamelessly on their sense of brotherhood with us, and impudently demanding union of their corrupt Church with ours, when they should know, even though they are ignorant as children, that their creed and their practices are merely sacrilegious parodies of the true faith and valid liturgy which are our Russian heritage. God is merciful that He has not long ago destroyed them.”
    “I must bring you a copy of a German religious journal,” said Monsieur Kamensky, “in which a German theologian discusses this very point and suggests that we consider it calmly.” But that did not work. “Laura,” said Nikolai, with thunder in his voice and an expression conveying benevolence and common sense, “you must forgive me if I have spoken frankly of your father’s country. But I must own that at one time it lay heavily on my conscience that I should have permitted one of my daughters to marry an Englishman, and I would like to explain to you that it wasn’t lightly that I disregarded my scruples.”
    “Oh, Father, don’t let’s talk of that,” said Tania. “I chose to marry Edward. It was my decision.”
    “It was not. How could it have been? If I hadn’t wished you to marry him you wouldn’t have married him. What I want you to understand, Laura, is that when I gave my consent to your parents’ marriage, I realized all the arguments against it. For one thing, I realized that there can never be peace between England and Russia until we have taken India from her.”
    “What on earth does he think India would do with Russians walking about all over it being crazy about the Orthodox Church?” thought Laura.
    “Until we have it, England must regard her with suspicion and fear, and this can only be replaced by resentment when the struggle comes to its inevitable end. As a Christian woman, your mother is bound to accept it as her duty to have no thought and emotions which are not her husband’s, so she would be bound to side