Jerry Sant gnawed his rag of a moustache for a fortnight or so, till
it was dripping and jagged. He began to have a notion that Mrs. Crowe
would like to have him elsewhere. That did not disturb him: for he
knew that he always could compel her services, when he wanted them, by
means of a pull on the purse-strings. The mildly elegant exiguity of
the circle in which she moved, had no attraction for him. There were
not many saxpences there; and he felt out of his depth in a company
which he could not lead by the nose. "In the kingdom of the blind, the
one-eyed man is king." He knew himself to be "a one-eyed man"; and, in
the kingdom of the Liblabs, he naturally had been one of the kings.
Here, among the English and Keltic Catholics in Rome, he was no more
than tolerated--and awfully worried by people who offered him tracts,
of which, for the life of him, he could make neither head nor tail.
Further he really seriously was annoyed that the Pope had not accepted
his handsome offer--had not even answered his letter. He thought it
most rude. It is a fatal and futile thing to leave letters unanswered,
especially impertinent letters. Silence does not "choke off": in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, it breeds bile which is bound to be
spurted sooner or later. It is a poor kind of a man who cannot indite
a letter which is a guillotine, a closure about which there can be no
possible mistake. By this means, uncertainty and its vile consequences
are prevented. Hadrian perfectly knew how to deliver Himself. His
faculty for finding-out other people's thumb-screws had provided
Him with blasting powder, if He had desired to be dynamic; and He
possessed Bishop Bagshawe's celebrated three-line formula, which never
has been known to fail of throttling an importunate correspondent. But
He no more could have touched Sant, even with a letter, than He could
have touched tripe with tongs. His feeling for the man was ultimate
antipathy, which led Him to commit the common error of ignoring what
ought to have been annihilated. Hence Sant's sense of spleen. Finally
Jerry had the Liblabs to keep quiet. Those extraordinary persons
were asking for something definite in the shape of news; and he had
no news at all to give them. That was the worst of it. Soon, some
treachery or other would be hatched against him behind his back, in
the most approved Liblab manner: he would be asked for explanations,
for a statement of accounts: he would be hauled over the coals, and
so on:--oh he obviously could not let it come to that. He must make
a fresh effort. The time had come for playing his next card. And for
three days he sat at the Hotel Nike, writing press-copy.
It was the Cardinal-Secretary-of-State who did himself the pleasure of
acquainting the Holy Father with the result of Jerry Sant's manœuvre.
His Eminency, on the whole, never had had a more congenial duty to
perform in all his life. He swirled into the Presence one evening at
dusk when Hadrian was waiting for the lamps, sitting by the undraped
window watching the dark figures passing over the grey square and the
specks of yellow light springing in the houses of the Borgo. Ragna
brought a newspaper which he thrust into the Pope's hands.
"See what a scoundrel you are!" he truculently snarled. "Fly! All is
discovered! The _Catholic Hour_ is exposing you finely!"
"Oh," said Hadrian, unimpassionately turning from the window, and
speaking with extreme frigidity.
"Light some candles, please." He took the paper: put up His left
hand to shade His eyes; and looked at the sheet. As He read His
pontifical name and His secular name, His blood began to tingle: for
He still loathed publicity. As He read on, His blood began to boil.
It was a frightful tale which He was reading--frightful, because He
saw at a glance that it was quite unanswerable. It was unanswerable
because there are some things of which the merest whisper suffices
to destroy--whose effect does not depend on truthfulness. It was
unanswerable because it was anonymous. It was unanswerable because He
never could bring Himself to condescend.... Who could have attacked
Him with such malignant ingenuity? The names of half a dozen filthy
hounds occurred to Him in as many seconds: but He was not able to
recognise any particular paw. He read on. He was conscious that His
face was a-flame with indignation: but it was in shadow. Coming to
a clear chronological error, He chuckled. That taught Him that His
voice was under control; and He remembered that the invidious eyes
of Ragna were upon Him. From time to time thereafter, He produced a
short contemptuous word or laugh by way of commentary as He came to
excessive absurdities; and, so, gradually He possessed Himself again.
Thus, He skimmed the article. At the end He looked up at the cardinal.
"Yes," He said, "We appear to be a very disreputable character. Now
We will go through the thing again, and note the actual errors of
fact." He returned to the top of the first column: and began to read
more analytically. In progress, He counted aloud "One, two,"--up to
"thirty-three absolute and deliberate lies, exclusive of gratuitous or
ignorant mispresentations of fact, in a column and three-quarters of
print.--Well?" He inquired, with a full straight gaze at the attendant
cardinal.
"What are You going to do now?"
"We will ponder the matter which Your Eminency has submitted to Us; and
at a convenient time We will declare Our pleasure. The paper may be
left with Us. Your Eminency has permission to retire." Ragna strode
towards the door. At the threshold, he turned and bayed, "Abdicate!"
"No: We will not abdicate," said Hadrian.
The Secretary-of-State rushed away. As he went swishing, snarling at
all and sundry, through the antechamber where the gentlemen were in
waiting, Sir Iulo suddenly shot-out his arms straight and rectangularly
level with his shoulders, swung-up a stiff right leg in a verisimilar
fashion, rigidly sank on his left toes till he sat on his left heel,
recovered his first position with a jerk, changed legs and repeated
the performance with the right. It was done in a second of time; and
his white teeth glittered in a grin as his muscles relaxed. There are
few more nerve-shattering spectacles than this of a lithe and graceful
young gentleman in scarlet behaving, without any warning whatever,
exactly like a monkey on a stick, manifesting the same startling
descendent and ascendent angularity, the same imperturbable inevitable
intolerable agility. Cardinal Ragna denounced him as a devil where he
stood; and swirled away in a vermilion billow of watered-silk.
As soon as He was left alone, Hadrian made the very firmest possible
act of will determining neither to bend nor to break. This done, He ate
His supper with careful deliberation; sent-away the tray; and ordered
a large pot-full of black coffee. Then He locked all doors and allowed
Himself a period of disintegration preparatory to redintegration, a
period of slackness preparatory to intensification. Now He severely
suffered. He read the article on the _Strange Career of the Pope_ again
and again, till His head swam with the horror of it. This was the
worst thing which ever had happened to Him. His previous experience
of newspaper libels was as nothing in comparison. All through the
bitter bitter years of His struggle for life, He had known Himself for
a fighter. As a fighter, He had expected blows in return for those
which He gave. And, when all was said and done, his fighting had not
been to Him a source of unmitigated pain. For one thing, He had had
pleasure in knowing that He scrupulously fought unscrupulous foes, that
He fought a losing battle, that he fought a million times His weight,
that He fought bare-handed against armed champions all the time. That
knowledge it was--the knowledge that He had contended (not as a hero
but) as heroes have contended--which alone had upheld him. And now----
But this---- It depicted Him as simply contemptible. Inspection of
the image of Himself, which the _Catholic Hour_ with such ferocious
flocculence delineated, brought Him to the verge of physical nausea.
But it was not true, real. It was not Himself. No, no. It was an
atrocious caricature. Oh yes, it was an atrocious caricature. Everybody
would know it for that---- Would they? How many had known the previous
libels for libels? How many had dared to proclaim the previous libels
for libels? One--out of hundreds.---- Oh how beastly, how beastly! He
read the thing again;--and dashed the paper to the ground. If it only
had made Him look wicked--or even ridiculous! But no. He categorically
was damned, as despicable, low, vulgar, abject, mean, everything which
merited contempt. Only a strenuous effort kept Him from shrieking in
hysteria. "God, God, am I really like that?" He moaned aloud, with
His palms stretched upward and outward and His eyes intent in agony.
He lost faith in Himself. Perhaps He was such an one. Perhaps His
imagination after all had been deluding Him, and He really was an
indefensible creature. It was possible. "Oh, have I ever been such a
dirty--beast. Have I?" He moaned again. And then all the being of Him
suffused--and whirled--and outraged Nature took Him in hand. The blow
to His self-respect, the shattering onslaught on His sensibilities,
were more than even His valid virile body could bear. He lay back in
His low chair; and swooned into oblivion.
After the lapse of an hour, He began to revive. It would appear that He
instantly knew what had happened: for He staggered to the open window
that the cold night air might reinvigorate him. Full consciousness by
slow degrees returned; and, with it, some measure of serenity. He took
up the argument at the point where He had left it.
No: He was not like that. Before Jesus in the pyx on His breast, He was
not like that. So He gradually calmed Himself. He had done desperate
deeds and foolish deeds: but never ignoble deeds:--stay:--once:--that
had nothing whatever to do with the present matter: nor was that one
ignoble deed ignoble in the esteem of anyone except Himself: it was
"smart" or "clever" in mundane phraseology: no one had been injured
by it: it had been atoned-for: but, according to the ideal code which
He had made for His Own guidance, it was ignoble. However it was not
known, except to Himself, and God, and His angel-guardian: it was not
even known to His confessor, for it was not even a venial sin. Well
then---- No. No. He had not merited the gibbet of the world's contempt.
Who had gibbeted Him?
He very carefully read the paper again. Who in the world could have
collected such a mass of apparently convincing evidence? He was
beginning to study the question from His usual stand-point of personal
unconcern. His own written words were cited in proof of the allegations
here made against Him. He knew them for His own written words. Who in
the world so ingeniously could have distorted their signification:
so skilfully could have mispresented Him? At some time in His life,
He (perhaps inadvertently) must have trodden upon some human worm;
and the worm now had turned and stung Him. He sought for a sign, a
trace;--and found it---- Of course;--and the motive simultaneously
leaped to light. It was payment of a grudge, owed to Him by a detected
letter-thief, a professional infidel, whom He had scathed with barbed
sarcasms about ten years ago. There was something more than that.
Again He studied the paper for corroboration. How came the _Catholic
Hour_, of all papers, to publish a denunciation of Him? He noted that
the _Catholic Hour_ pretended its denunciation as being copied from
the _Devana Radical_. And the letter-thief resided at Devana; and
engaged in job-journalism: also, he had access to more than much of
the information here misused. Not to all of it though. Here and there
in the article, Hadrian's literary faculty enabled Him to perceive a
change of touch. Here and there were technical opinions and technical
modes of expression which could not have emanated from that one. Who
was responsible for these? The Pope, of all men on God's fair earth,
was qualified to recognize "the fine Roman hand"--the fine Roman hand
at least of one of His Own contemporaries at St. Andrew's College,
whom He had afflicted with a ridiculous label, a harmless jibe simply
composed of the man's own initial and surname joined together:--the
fine Roman hand of a pseudonymous editor with whom He had refused to
have dealings. Yes, and there too was the obscene touch of the female.
"Spretae injuri formae" over again!
At last, He summed up:--
Material Cause. Information, possessed (the gods knew by what means)
by the detected letter-thief and the female. Opinions, collected from
(perhaps proffered by) Spite desirous of stabbing Scorn in the back.
Formal Cause. Calumny, that is to say Slander which is False.
Efficient Cause. The pontifical treatment of the representatives of
the Liblab Fellowship now in the City.
Final Cause. (_a_) Intimidation. (_b_) Revenge.
It was as clear as day-light.
Hadrian sat back in his chair; and blamed--Himself. His mind went
straight to the root of the matter. It was His Own fault. He had
not loved His neighbour. He had been hard, unkind, austere. He had
cultivated His natural faculty for rubbing salt upon His neighbour's
rawest and most secret sore,--salt in the shape of biting words,
satire, sarcasm, corrosive irony, labels which adhered. But, He had
done this when fighting, stark-naked and alone, against long odds!
No matter. It was part of the struggle for life! No matter. But He
would have been killed--not metaphorically but--literally killed, long
ago---- How did He know that?--Like all men, He had been trusting in
Himself, not in the Maker of the Stars. As a matter of fact, He did not
and could not know.--In His Own eyes, as His Own judge, each point of
His defence failed. He pleaded guilty. He had not loved His neighbour.
His soul fled up to the divinities who severely sit upon the awful
bench: but there was no solace to be obtained from them. He took the
beautiful crucifix from His neck: the pyx from His breast: laid them on
the table; and kneeled before the Sovereign of the seraphim. He made
an act of contrition. He acknowledged His sin: acknowledged that He
had merited condign punishment. He very humbly thanked God for giving
Him His punishment in this world. "O that my lot might lead me in the
path of holy innocence of thought and deed, the path which august laws
ordain, laws which had their birth in the highest heaven, neither did
the race of mortal man beget them, nor shall oblivion ever put them
to sleep: for the Power of God is mighty in them," He prayed, in the
verses of Sophokles.
He sent for His confessor.
It had been a dreadful experience. He was conscious of having been
shaken seriously. He felt quite old. His youth and strength, His
nerve, seemed to have been torn-out of Him. The world seemed to have
slipped-away from under Him. Yes--the world---- How should He meet the
world?--With equanimity and fortitude. What should He say and do?
Nothing.... Nothing....
His confessor arrived; and He confessed that, since His last confession
on the previous day, He had been guilty of the sin of anger. Also, He
renewed His sorrow for a sin of His past life. He had not loved His
neighbour. The bare-footed friar absolved Him; and commanded Him to
say, for His penance, one mass for the present and eternal welfare of
all whom He had offended.
Hadrian laid-open the _Catholic Hour_ on a table where it was not
concealed and whence it would not be removed: tried to turn away His
thought and to leave the incident behind Him. That the effect of it
would become manifest, that the memory of it would recur, He knew: but
neither memory nor effect ever should delay His progress. He spent the
rest of the evening in meditation on the future. At bed-time He did
not go down to St. Peter's: but said His prayers by His bedside with
child-like simplicity and feebleness. And care-dispersing sleep lit on
His eyelids, unwakeful, very pleasant, the nearest like death.