Hadrian knew that He was becoming confirmed in His pose of director.
Not that He was inflated by His exaltation to the apostolature. He
was conscious that people, except a few enthusiasts, were become
indifferent to religion. He knew the danger of indifference to be so
great that it was no time to strain at gnats. He could not trouble
about rats in the ship's hold while the torpedo was approaching. He
was thought to share the abominable heresy of Tolstoy, whose works
He never would touch with tongs. He saw that most men lived in mist;
and preferred it: that most men durst not see clearly, because their
business and their social interest would not stand it. He was not
absolutely certain that He Himself could see the remedy: but He was
certain that blindness was no remedy. So He put forth the evangelic
counsels for obedience. "Strip; and obey those" appeared to be
sufficient for the present; and He would not fiddle-faddle with human
doctrines or empirical experiments. He had the big vision, the seeing
eye, the hearing ear, wit, perverseness, daring, and the lonely heart,
and the contempt of the world. The effect of His entire freedom of
action was to inspire Him physically and mentally with the thrilling
vigour of a pentathlete. He had the violent energy of the minute
electron in the enormous atom. He felt Himself strong. He knew that
His forces were tensely strung; and in their melody He was very glad.
Sometimes He caught Himself wondering how long He could maintain the
pitch: but from that thought He turned away. It was enough that He was
able. He would not spare Himself. The night cometh when no man can work.
"Let it come," he said to Cardinal Sterling: "but, while day lasts, We
work."
A splendid sentence of Mommsen's bit into his brain. _Cæsar ruled as
King of Rome for five years and a half ...; in the intervals of seven
great campaigns, which allowed him to stay not more than fifteen months
altogether in the capital of the empire, he regulated the destinies
of the world for the present and the future.... Precisely because
the building was an endless one, the master, as long as he lived,
restlessly added stone to stone, with always the same dexterity and
always the same elasticity busy at his work, without ever overturning
or postponing, just as though there were for him merely to-day and no
to-morrow. Thus he worked and created as never did any mortal before or
after him; and, as a worker and creator, he still, after two thousand
years, lives in the memory of the nations--the first, and withal
unique, Imperator Cæsar._--And Julius, also, had been Pontifex Maximus.
Hadrian took a white umbrella for a walk as far as the black-lava fort
on the Appian Way.
He considered the horrible condition of France and Russia. It was
a menace to the world. Of Russia, He could learn nothing new.
Thews and Thought together had abolished authority and gone mad in
butchery. The information, which He had obtained from the French
Cardinals, was not of a rather useful nature. Elements of emotional
sentiment and archaic conventionalism rendered their opinions well
nigh worthless. They were tolutiloquent in expressing horror at the
impiety of mob-rule which had deprived them of the right to military
salutes ordained by the Concordat. They made the blood boil by their
heart-rending descriptions of holocausts of priests and nuns--earnest
heroic enthusiasts absolutely incapable of doing anything really
practical in the way of eradicating that demoniality of which they
became the victims. Nothing would please Their Eminencies better than
to hasten to their distracted native-land, to offer up themselves
as martyrs to the devils of their dioceses. They were no cowards--if
desire to rush on death be bravery:--but they were picturesque, and
dithyrambic,--mainly picturesque, with their long hair and their rabats
edged with white beads. That would not do as an essential. Out of
the mellay of matter laid before Him, the Pontiff extracted certain
points. France, quâ France, no longer was Christian. The Devil was in
power. Christians who were able to cross frontiers, did so. Spain,
Italy, Switzerland, Germany, received them. England, America, Japan,
blockaded Toulon, Brest, Cherbourg. Their liners tapped the coasts;
and carried thousands into freedom. Poverty afflicted the emigrants:
those left behind were butchers, or subject to butchery. Dom Jaime de
Bourbon having perished, the Pope sent for the Duke of Orleans;--and
dismissed him with austere disgust. He subsequently withered away. His
Holiness gave audience to a score of the French nobility; and spent
some days picking the brains of emigrants fortuitously collected. Then,
He again convened the French cardinals, and declared the pontifical
will. They all were deposed from their episcopal sees, and nominated
Apostolic Missionaries. Their charge was the cure, first of the bodies,
second of the souls, of Frenchmen everywhere. The Cardinal-Missionary
of Paris would go to London with the Cardinal-Archbishop of Pimlico,
having powers to draw one million sterling from the pontifical treasure
in the Bank of England: which sum, in halves, was to be the nucleus
of two funds, an English and a German, for French Christians in their
need. Each cardinal-missionary also received a breve authorizing him,
and persons delegated by him, to collect money in every Christian
country for the said funds. It was not to be a clerical charity. The
Lord Mayor of London and the German Emperor were willing to administer
it, each independently. Further Their Eminencies were to use their own
discretion about adventuring themselves in the diabolical dominion. If
they best could serve God there, then in God's Name, and with God's
Vicegerent's benediction, let them go: but they most straitly were
bidden to keep one only object before them, viz. the service of God
through the relief and comfort of His servants. Nothing was to prevent
them in that.
The world began to concentrate the corner of its eye on Hadrian.
Holland and Belgium fell into the arms of anarchical France. The
vigorous bold brilliant young Sultan Ismail, having failed to win
Morocco to his Pan-Islamic scheme, was intriguing for an alliance with
the other great Muhammedan power, England. His Majesty's murdered
predecessor, by the aid of Germany, had formed an army of a million and
a half, full of fanatical valour and the wonderful natural adaptability
of the Turk, the rawest recruit of which had a greater fighting-value
than was possessed by the conscripts of any other nation. This force
was available for active service at fifteen minutes' notice. The
Turkish alliance was worth anyone's while; and was coveted. Germany had
trained the Ottoman squadrons: but was not to profit thereby. Teutonic
stolidity had been outwitted by the wily Oriental. Islam could only and
only would mate with Islam--as might have been foreseen. The rest of
the continent of Europe ringed frontiers under arms. Each nation feared
the other; and all feared France and Russia.
Hadrian watched the diplomatic processes with interest. He knew that
England was quite capable of taking care of Herself, with or without
the Mussulman. He grasped the theory that Muhammedanism, arising six
hundred years after Christ, justified the Wisdom of God in Judaism,
proving that the Oriental mind could bear nothing more perfect; and
He conceived a sort of sympathy with Islam. His conversations with
ambassadors became known in courts, (the King of Prussia's legate
wrote amazing things to the German Emperor:) from courts, descriptions
of opinions, tastes, habits, descended until they were discussed in
clubs and miscellaneous congeries. Hadrian's custom of walking about
unattended, looking-at the excavations in the Forum, visiting the sick
in hospitals, sensuously delighting Himself with the glories of sunset
seen from the Pincian Hill, were the themes of common conversation.
And when, one evening, He got-in a left hander (from the shoulder)
on a socialist, who spat at Him in Borgo Nuovo; and then, (on the
filthy beast's bursting into tears and collapsing with the effects of
the blow upon semi-starvation), pressing upon him His pectoral cross
and chain, His gold spectacles, and all the coins left in His pocket
after a couple of hours in Rome,--then the English race began to find
the Pope observable; and English newspapers started columns called
_Rome Day by Day_. How the special correspondents spread themselves!
She of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ got the usual exclusive information of
the Borgo Nuovo affair; and split nine infinitives in describing the
myopic Pontiff narrowing His eyes to slits, groping His way along the
colonnades with His fainting assailant; His passionate denunciation
of the farce of organized charity, which had let a man become so
degraded; His agitation until Cardinal Carvale came running with His
spare pair of spectacles; His strangely pathetic thankfulness for the
gift of sight which they afforded; His anguish at the defilement of His
garment; and His tender invitation to the starving socialist to be His
guest in Vatican. All this suited the English temper to a T,--being
English. But there was created a profound and perdurable impression.
The King of Prussia's legate wrote more amazing things to the German
Emperor. Hadrian became regarded in cabinets and chancelleries as
one who cared or strove neither for loss nor gain, neither for life
nor death--as the one Potentate who rightly or wrongly knew his own
mind--as a Power with whom a reckoning might have to be made. After
all, it merely was the effect of simplicity upon complexity, of
felinity upon caninity.
He was sitting alone, thinking, and carefully unravelling a woollen
antimacassar. It had been crocheted in five bossy strips, three of
orange hue and two of grey, alternately arranged. He had unravelled
two orange and two grey strips; and had the wool neatly rolled in four
balls beside Him. The next time He should go into the City, some little
girl would be made happy with two nice balls of grey wool and a lira
to buy knitting needles; and, the time after that, another little girl
would have three balls of orange wool and a lira also; and pontifical
eyes would not be scorched by ghastly antimacassars any more, nor
would the kind heart of anyone be wounded. He finished the job; and
went to talk to his socialist. That one turned out to be a goldsmith,
with the ideals and the brains and the fingers of Cellini, but not the
acquisitiveness. Hence straits, socialism, sophistries, starvation.
They walked about the sculpture-galleries for coolness; and spoke of
Beautiful Things. Hadrian revelled. His guest was a man of taste; and
talked-on-a-trot with wonderful gestures, making and moulding ideal
images which the mind's eye could see. They came to the Apoxyomenos:
stood: raved; and became dumb, feasting on the lithe majesty of perfect
proportion. The artificer first spoke.
"Holiness," he said, "can You see that body and those limbs crucified?"
Hadrian's mind caught the idea. The splendid forms of the marble seemed
to re-arrange themselves in the new pose. His eyes came slowly round to
His questioner.
"Yes," He answered: "but soaring and triumphing, 'reigning from the
tree,' not drooping and dying--and not the head and bust." He took the
goldsmith's arm and hurried him to the Antinous of the Belvedere; and
began to speak very quickly.
"Sir," He said, "you will be pleased to stay here; and, with the
materials which will be provided, you will make a new cross for Us. The
cross will be of the kind called Potent, elongate: the Figure will
combine the body and limbs of the Apoxyomenos with the head and bust of
the Antinous, but posed as We have described. On the completion of this
master-piece, you will be offered an appointment as goldsmith in the
pontifical household----"
"Ah, Padrone."
Hadrian returned to the secret chamber, happy in anticipation of an
emblem which would not offend His taste. True, He was glad (in a way)
that a tangled life so easily could be made straight: but it was the
visionary ideal of Beauty which really inspired joy.