(I)
It was a few minutes after they had finished their almost silent
meal that evening, that Monsignor suddenly leaned forward from his
chair in the great cool loggia and passed his hands over his eyes
like a sleepy man. From the streets outside still came the murmur
of innumerable footsteps and voices and snatches of music.
"Tired?" asked the other gently. (He had not spoken for some
minutes, and remembering the long silence, had wondered if, after
all, it had been wise to bring a man with such an experience
behind him to such a rush and excitement as that through which
they had passed to-day.)
Monsignor said nothing for an instant. He looked round the room,
opened and closed his lips, and then, leaning back again,
suddenly smiled. Then he took up the pipe he had laid aside just
now and blew through it.
"No," he said. "Exactly the opposite. I feel awake at last."
"Eh?"
"It seems to have got into me at last. All this . . . all this
very odd world. I have begun to see."
"Please explain."
Monsignor began to fill his pipe slowly.
"Well, Versailles, even, didn't quite do it," he said. "It
seemed to me a kind of game--certainly a very pleasant one;
but----" (He broke off.) "But what we've seen to-day seems
somehow the real thing."
"I don't quite understand."
"Well, I can see for myself now that all that you've told me is
real--that the world's really Christian, and so on. It was those
Chinese guards, I think, which as much as anything----"
"Chinese? . . . I don't remember them."
The prelate smiled again.
"Well, I scarcely noticed them at the time, either. But I've been
thinking about them. And then all the rest of it . . . and the
Pope. . . . By the way, I couldn't make out his face very well.
Is that a picture of him?"
He stood up suddenly and stepped across to where the portrait
hung. There was nothing very startling about the picture. It
showed just a very ordinary face with straight closed lips, of a
man seated in an embossed chair, with the familiar white cap,
cassock, and embroidered stole with spade-ends.
"He looks quite ordinary," mused Monsignor aloud. "It's . . .
it's like the face of a business man."
"Oh yes, he's ordinary. He's an extremely good man and quite
intelligent. He's never had any very great crisis to face, you know.
They say he's a good financier. . . . You look disappointed."
"I hadn't expected him to look like that," said the prelate, musing.
"Why not?"
"Well, he seems to have an extraordinary position in the world. I
should have expected more of a----"
"More of a great man? Monsignor, don't you think that the Average
Man makes the best ruler?"
"But that's rank Democracy!"
"Not at all. Democracy doesn't give the Average Man any real
power at all. It swamps him among his fellows--that is to say, it
kills his individuality; and his individuality is the one thing
he has which is worth anything."
Monsignor sat down again, sighing.
"Well, I think it's got into me at last," he repeated. "I mean, I
think I really realize what the world's like now. But I want to
see a great deal more, you know."
"What sort of things?"
"Well, I don't quite know. . . . You might call it the waterline
between Faith and Science. I see the Faith side. I understand
that the life of the world moves on Catholicism now; but I don't
quite realize yet how all that joins on to Science. In my day----"
(he broke off) "I mean I had a kind of idea that there was a gap
between Faith and Science--if not actual contradictions. How do
they join on to one another? What's the average scientific
attitude towards religion? Do people on both sides just say that
each must pursue its own line, even if they never meet?"
Father Jervis looked puzzled.
"I don't quite understand. There's no conflict between Faith and
Science. A large proportion of the scientists are
ecclesiastics."
"But what's the meeting-point? That's what I don't see."
The priest shook his head, smiling.
"I simply don't know what you mean, Monsignor. Give me an example."
"Well . . . er . . . what about Faith-healing? The dispute used
to be, I think, as to the explanation of certain cures. (Mr.
Manners spoke of it, you know.) Psychologists used to say that
the cures happened by suggestion; and Catholics used to say that
they were supernatural. How have they become reconciled?"
Father Jervis considered a moment.
"I don't think I've ever thought of it like that," he said. "I
think I should say--" (he hesitated) "I think I should say that
everybody believes now that the power of God does everything;
and that in some cases He works through suggestion, and in some
through supernatural forces about which we don't know very
much. But I don't think it matters much (does it?), if you
believe in God."
"That doesn't explain what I mean."
The door opened abruptly and a servant came in. He bowed.
"The Bishop of Sebaste enquires whether you are at home, Monsignor?"
Monsignor glanced at Father Jervis.
"He's come out as chaplain to Prince George," explained the
priest in rapid Latin. "We'd better see him."
"Very good. . . . Yes," said Monsignor.
He turned to the priest again.
"Hadn't you better tell him about me?"
"You don't mind?"
"Of course not."
Father Jervis got up and slipped quickly out of the room.
"I'm delighted to see you again, Monsignor," began the Bishop,
coming in, followed by Father Jervis three minutes later.
Monsignor straightened himself after the kissing of the ring.
"You're very kind, my lord," he said.
As the Bishop sat down, he examined him carefully, noticing that
there was nothing noticeable about him. He seemed a
characteristic prelate--large, genial, ruddy and smiling, with
bright eyes and well-cut mouth. He was in his purple and
ferraiuola, and carried himself briskly and cheerfully.
"I came to see if you were going to the reception to-night. If
so, we might go together. But it's rather late!"
"We haven't heard about that."
"Oh! it's purely informal. The Holy Father probably won't appear
himself, except perhaps for a moment."
"Oh! At the Vatican?"
"Yes. There will be an enormous crowd, of course. . . . The Prince
has gone to bed, poor little chap! He's done up altogether; and I
thought of slipping over for a half-hour or so."
Monsignor glanced at his friend.
"I think it would be an excellent thing," observed the old priest.
"Well, there's a carriage waiting," said the Bishop, rising.
"I think we'd better go, if we're going. We shall be back
within the hour."
(II)
It was within ten minutes of the time that the three had arranged
to meet again at the foot of the Scala Regia that Monsignor
suddenly realized that he had lost himself.
He had wandered for half an hour, after making his salutations to
the Master of the Apostolic Palace, who, in the Pope's absence,
was receiving the visitors; and, at first with Father Jervis and
the Bishop, who had pointed out to him the notabilities, and
presently drifting from them in the crowds, by himself, had gone
up and down and in and out through endless corridors, courts,
loggie, and great reception-rooms of the enormous place, watching
the amazing crowds, and exchanging bows and nods with persons who
bowed and nodded to him.
The whole system of the thing seemed new to him. He had imagined
(he scarcely knew why) the Vatican to be a place of silence and
solemn dignity and darkness, with a few sentries here and there,
a few prelates, a cardinal or two--with occasionally a group of
very particular visitors, or, on still rarer occasions, a troop
of pilgrims being escorted to some sight or some audience.
Certainly it was not at all like this to-night.
First, the whole place was illuminated in nearly every window.
Huge electric lights blazed behind screens in all the courts;
bands of music were stationed at discreet intervals one from
another; and through every section that he went, through
corridors, reception-rooms, up and down stairways, seething in
every court, streaming through every passage and thoroughfare,
moved a multitude of persons--largely ecclesiastics, but also
very largely otherwise (though there were no ladies
present)--talking, questioning, laughing, wholly, it seemed, at
their ease, and appearing to find nothing unusual in the entire
affair. Here and there in some of the great rooms small courts
seemed to be in process--a company of perhaps thirty or forty
would be standing round two or three notabilities who sat. There
was usually a cardinal here, sometimes two or three; and on three
or four occasions he saw what he imagined must be royalty of some
kind, seated with a cardinal, while the rest stood.
It was to him a very extraordinary spectacle, in spite of his
further initiation that day into this new world, so utterly
unfamiliar to him; and it seemed once more to drive home to his
consciousness this strange state of affairs of which his friend
had tried to persuade him, but which he yet found difficult
wholly to take in. Certainly the world and the Church seemed on
very cordial terms. . . .
But now he had lost himself altogether. He had wandered up a long
corridor, thinking that it would lead him back to the Court of St.
Damasus, whence he knew his way well enough; and he now paused,
hesitating. For it seemed to him that every step he was taking led
him farther from the lights and the din of voices and music.
He could see behind him, framed in a huge open doorway, as on an
illuminated disc, a kaleidoscope of figures moving; and in front,
as he stood, the corridor, although here the lights burned as
brilliantly as elsewhere, seemed to lead away into comparative
darkness. Yet he felt certain of his direction.
Then, as he stood, a door opened somewhere in front, and he thought
he heard voices talking again. It reassured him, and he went on.
It was not until he found himself in a small lobby (comparatively
small that is, for it was not less than forty feet square, and
the painted coffered ceiling was twenty feet above his head),
that he stopped again, completely bewildered. There was no longer
any sound to guide him, for he had closed a couple of
passage-doors behind him as he came; and he noticed that
practically complete silence was on all sides; a single
illuminated half-globe shone gently from the ceiling overhead.
He stood some time considering and listening to the silence, till
he became aware that it was not silence. There was a very faint
murmur of a voice behind one of the four doors that opened on
this lobby; and beside the door there rested (he now noticed for
the first time) the halberd of a Swiss, as if the soldier had
just been called within. This decided him; he went to the door,
laid his hand upon the handle, and immediately the murmur ceased.
He pushed down the handle and opened the door.
For a moment as he stared within he could not understand: he had
expected a passage--a guard-room--at least something secular. Yet
it was some kind of a chapel or sacristy into which he was
looking: he observed the outline of an altar with its crucifix;
and two figures.
Then one of the figures--in the habit of a Franciscan,
barefooted, with a purple stole across its shoulders--had sprung
towards him, and half pushed, half waved him backwards again.
"What are you doing here? How dare you----I beg pardon,
Monsignor, but----"
"I beg pardon, father; I had lost my way. . . . I am a stranger."
"Back--back that way, Monsignor," stammered the friar. "The guard
should have told you."
The truth was dawning on the prelate little by little, helped by
the flash of the other kneeling white figure he had seen within.
"Yes," stammered the friar again. "The Holy Father. Back that
way, Monsignor. Yes, yes--that door straight opposite."
It was over; the two doors had closed almost simultaneously, behind
the friar as he had gone back to his duty, and behind the priest
who now stood again at the end of the long corridor down which he
had come. He stood here now, strangely moved and affected.
He had seen nothing remarkable in itself--the Pope at confession.
And yet in some manner, beyond the startling fact that he had
groped his way, all unknowing, to the Pope's private apartments,
and at such a moment, the dramatic contrast between the glare and
noise of the reception outside--itself the climax of a series of
brilliant external splendours--and the silent half-lighted chapel
where the Lord of All kneeled to confess his sins, caused a
surprising disturbance in his soul.
Up to now he had been introduced step by step into a new set of
experiences, Christian indeed, yet amazingly worldly in their
aspect; he had begun to learn that religion could transform the
outer world, and affect and use for its own purposes all the
pomps and glories of outward existence; he had begun to realize
that there was nothing alien to God--no line of division between
the Creator and the creature; and now, in one instant, he had
been brought face to face again with inner realities, and had
seen, as it were, a glimpse of the secret core of all the
splendour. The Pope attended by princes--the Pope on his knees
before a barefooted friar. These were the two magnetic points
between which blazed Religion.
He stood there, trembling a little, trying to steady his bewildered
brain--even now, in spite of his years, not unlike the brain of a
child. He passed his tongue over his suddenly dry lips. Then he
began to move down the passage again, to find his friends.