All Rome, indeed, was again talking of this affair. An extraordinary

revival of tittle-tattle had set both white and black worlds agog. And so

there was no need for reticence on Victorine’s part, especially in

conversing with a compatriot. It appeared, then, that, in reply to

Advocate Morano’s memoir setting forth that the marriage had not been

consummated, there had come another memoir, a terrible one, emanating

from Monsignor Palma, a doctor in theology, whom the Congregation of the

Council had selected to defend the marriage. As a first point, Monsignor

Palma flatly disputed the alleged non-consummation, questioned the

certificate put forward on Benedetta’s behalf, and quoted instances

recorded in scientific text-books which showed how deceptive appearances

often were. He strongly insisted, moreover, on the narrative which Count

Prada supplied in another memoir, a narrative well calculated to inspire

doubt; and, further, he so turned and twisted the evidence of Benedetta’s

own maid as to make that evidence also serve against her. Finally he

argued in a decisive way that, even supposing the marriage had not been

consummated, this could only be ascribed to the resistance of the

Countess, who had thus set at defiance one of the elementary laws of

married life, which was that a wife owed obedience to her husband.

Next had come a fourth memoir, drawn up by the reporter of the

Congregation, who analysed and discussed the three others, and

subsequently the Congregation itself had dealt with the matter, opining

in favour of the dissolution of the marriage by a majority of one

vote--such a bare majority, indeed, that Monsignor Palma, exercising his

rights, had hastened to demand further inquiry, a course which brought

the whole _procedure_ again into question, and rendered a fresh vote

necessary.

“Ah! the poor Contessina!” exclaimed Victorine, “she’ll surely die of

grief, for, calm as she may seem, there’s an inward fire consuming her.

It seems that Monsignor Palma is the master of the situation, and can

make the affair drag on as long as he likes. And then a deal of money had

already been spent, and one will have to spend a lot more. Abbe Pisoni,

whom you know, was very badly inspired when he helped on that marriage;

and though I certainly don’t want to soil the memory of my good mistress,

Countess Ernesta, who was a real saint, it’s none the less true that she

wrecked her daughter’s life when she gave her to Count Prada.”

The housekeeper paused. Then, impelled by an instinctive sense of

justice, she resumed. “It’s only natural that Count Prada should be

annoyed, for he’s really being made a fool of. And, for my part, as there

is no end to all the fuss, and this divorce is so hard to obtain, I

really don’t see why the Contessina shouldn’t live with her Dario without

troubling any further. Haven’t they loved one another ever since they

were children? Aren’t they both young and handsome, and wouldn’t they be

happy together, whatever the world might say? Happiness, _mon Dieu_! one

finds it so seldom that one can’t afford to let it pass.”

Then, seeing how greatly surprised Pierre was at hearing such language,

she began to laugh with the quiet composure of one belonging to the

humble classes of France, whose only desire is a quiet and happy life,

irrespective of matrimonial ties. Next, in more discreet language, she

proceeded to lament another worry which had fallen on the household,

another result of the divorce affair. A rupture had come about between

Donna Serafina and Advocate Morano, who was very displeased with the ill

success of his memoir to the congregation, and accused Father

Lorenza--the confessor of the Boccanera ladies--of having urged them into

a deplorable lawsuit, whose only fruit could be a wretched scandal

affecting everybody. And so great had been Morano’s annoyance that he had

not returned to the Boccanera mansion, but had severed a connection of

thirty years’ standing, to the stupefaction of all the Roman

drawing-rooms, which altogether disapproved of his conduct. Donna

Serafina was, for her part, the more grieved as she suspected the

advocate of having purposely picked the quarrel in order to secure an

excuse for leaving her; his real motive, in her estimation, being a

sudden, disgraceful passion for a young and intriguing woman of the

middle classes.

That Monday evening, when Pierre entered the drawing-room, hung with

yellow brocatelle of a flowery Louis XIV pattern, he at once realised

that melancholy reigned in the dim light radiating from the lace-veiled

lamps. Benedetta and Celia, seated on a sofa, were chatting with Dario,

whilst Cardinal Sarno, ensconced in an arm-chair, listened to the

ceaseless chatter of the old relative who conducted the little Princess

to each Monday gathering. And the only other person present was Donna

Serafina, seated all alone in her wonted place on the right-hand side of

the chimney-piece, and consumed with secret rage at seeing the chair on

the left-hand side unoccupied--that chair which Morano had always taken

during the thirty years that he had been faithful to her. Pierre noticed

with what anxious and then despairing eyes she observed his entrance, her

glance ever straying towards the door, as though she even yet hoped for

the fickle one’s return. Withal her bearing was erect and proud; she

seemed to be more tightly laced than ever; and there was all the wonted

haughtiness on her hard-featured face, with its jet-black eyebrows and

snowy hair.

Pierre had no sooner paid his respects to her than he allowed his own

worry to appear by inquiring whether they would not have the pleasure of

seeing Monsignor Nani that evening. Thereupon Donna Serafina could not

refrain from answering: “Oh! Monsignor Nani is forsaking us like the

others. People always take themselves off when they can be of service.”

She harboured a spite against the prelate for having done so little to

further the divorce in spite of his many promises. Beneath his outward

show of extreme willingness and caressing affability he doubtless

concealed some scheme of his own which he was tenaciously pursuing.

However, Donna Serafina promptly regretted the confession which anger had

wrung from her, and resumed: “After all, he will perhaps come. He is so

good-natured, and so fond of us.”

In spite of the vivacity of her temperament she really wished to act

diplomatically, so as to overcome the bad luck which had recently set in.

Her brother the Cardinal had told her how irritated he was by the

attitude of the Congregation of the Council; he had little doubt that the

frigid reception accorded to his niece’s suit had been due in part to the

desire of some of his brother cardinals to be disagreeable to him.

Personally, he desired the divorce, as it seemed to him the only means of

ensuring the perpetuation of the family; for Dario obstinately refused to

marry any other woman than his cousin. And thus there was an accumulation

of disasters; the Cardinal was wounded in his pride, his sister shared

his sufferings and on her own side was stricken in the heart, whilst both

lovers were plunged in despair at finding their hopes yet again deferred.

As Pierre approached the sofa where the young folks were chatting he

found that they were speaking of the catastrophe. “Why should you be so

despondent?” asked Celia in an undertone. “After all, there was a

majority of a vote in favour of annulling the marriage. Your suit hasn’t

been rejected; there is only a delay.”

But Benedetta shook her head. “No, no! If Monsignor Palma proves

obstinate his Holiness will never consent. It’s all over.”

“Ah! if one were only rich, very rich!” murmured Dario, with such an air

of conviction that no one smiled. And, turning to his cousin, he added in

a whisper: “I must really have a talk with you. We cannot go on living

like this.”

In a breath she responded: “Yes, you are right. Come down to-morrow

evening at five. I will be here alone.”

Then dreariness set in; the evening seemed to have no end. Pierre was

greatly touched by the evident despair of Benedetta, who as a rule was so

calm and sensible. The deep eyes which illumined her pure, delicate,

infantile face were now blurred as by restrained tears. He had already

formed a sincere affection for her, pleased as he was with her equable if

somewhat indolent disposition, the semblance of discreet good sense with

which she veiled her soul of fire. That Monday even she certainly tried

to smile while listening to the pretty secrets confided to her by Celia,

whose love affairs were prospering far more than her own. There was only

one brief interval of general conversation, and that was brought about by

the little Princess’s aunt, who, suddenly raising her voice, began to

speak of the infamous manner in which the Italian newspapers referred to

the Holy Father. Never, indeed, had there been so much bad feeling

between the Vatican and the Quirinal. Cardinal Sarno felt so strongly on

the subject that he departed from his wonted silence to announce that on

the occasion of the sacrilegious festivities of the Twentieth of

September, celebrating the capture of Rome, the Pope intended to cast a

fresh letter of protest in the face of all the Christian powers, whose

indifference proved their complicity in the odious spoliation of the

Church.

“Yes, indeed! what folly to try and marry the Pope and the King,”

bitterly exclaimed Donna Serafina, alluding to her niece’s deplorable

marriage.

The old maid now seemed quite beside herself; it was already so late that

neither Monsignor Nani nor anybody else was expected. However, at the

unhoped-for sound of footsteps her eyes again brightened and turned

feverishly towards the door. But it was only to encounter a final

disappointment. The visitor proved to be Narcisse Habert, who stepped up

to her, apologising for making so late a call. It was Cardinal Sarno, his

uncle by marriage, who had introduced him into this exclusive _salon_,

where he had received a cordial reception on account of his religious

views, which were said to be most uncompromising. If, however, despite

the lateness of the hour, he had ventured to call there that evening, it

was solely on account of Pierre, whom he at once drew on one side.

“I felt sure I should find you here,” he said. “Just now I managed to see

my cousin, Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo, and I have some good news for you.

He will see us to-morrow at about eleven in his rooms at the Vatican.”

Then, lowering his voice: “I think he will endeavour to conduct you to

the Holy Father. Briefly, the audience seems to me assured.”

Pierre was greatly delighted by this promised certainty, which came to

him so suddenly in that dreary drawing-room, where for a couple of hours

he had been gradually sinking into despair! So at last a solution was at

hand!

Meantime Narcisse, after shaking hands with Dario and bowing to Benedetta

and Celia, approached his uncle the Cardinal, who, having rid himself of

the old relation, made up his mind to talk. But his conversation was

confined to the state of his health, and the weather, and sundry

insignificant anecdotes which he had lately heard. Not a word escaped him

respecting the thousand complicated matters with which he dealt at the

Propaganda. It was as though, once outside his office, he plunged into

the commonplace and the unimportant by way of resting from the anxious

task of governing the world. And after he had spoken for a time every one

got up, and the visitors took leave.

“Don’t forget,” Narcisse repeated to Pierre, “you will find me at the

Sixtine Chapel to-morrow at ten. And I will show you the Botticellis

before we go to our appointment.”

At half-past nine on the following morning Pierre, who had come on foot,

was already on the spacious Piazza of St. Peter’s; and before turning to

the right, towards the bronze gate near one corner of Bernini’s

colonnade, he raised his eyes and lingered, gazing at the Vatican.

Nothing to his mind could be less monumental than the jumble of buildings

which, without semblance of architectural order or regularity of any

kind, had grown up in the shadow cast by the dome of the basilica. Roofs

rose one above the other and broad, flat walls stretched out chance-wise,

just as wings and storeys had been added. The only symmetry observable

above the colonnade was that of the three sides of the court of San

Damaso, where the lofty glass-work which now encloses the old _loggie_

sparkled in the sun between the ruddy columns and pilasters, suggesting,

as it were, three huge conservatories.

And this was the most beautiful palace in the world, the largest of all

palaces, comprising no fewer than eleven thousand apartments and

containing the most admirable masterpieces of human genius! But Pierre,

disillusioned as he was, had eyes only for the lofty facade on the right,

overlooking the piazza, for he knew that the second-floor windows there

were those of the Pope’s private apartments. And he contemplated those

windows for a long time, and remembered having been told that the fifth

one on the right was that of the Pope’s bed-room, and that a lamp could

always be seen burning there far into the night.

What was there, too, behind that gate of bronze which he saw before

him--that sacred portal by which all the kingdoms of the world

communicated with the kingdom of heaven, whose august vicar had secluded

himself behind those lofty, silent walls? From where he stood Pierre

gazed on that gate with its metal panels studded with large square-headed

nails, and wondered what it defended, what it concealed, what it shut off

from the view, with its stern, forbidding air, recalling that of the gate

of some ancient fortress. What kind of world would he find behind it,

what treasures of human charity jealously preserved in yonder gloom, what

revivifying hope for the new nations hungering for fraternity and

justice? He took pleasure in fancying, in picturing the one holy pastor

of humanity, ever watching in the depths of that closed palace, and,

while the nations strayed into hatred, preparing all for the final reign

of Jesus, and at last proclaiming the advent of that reign by

transforming our democracies into the one great Christian community

promised by the Saviour. Assuredly the world’s future was being prepared

behind that bronze portal; assuredly it was that future which would issue

forth.

But all at once Pierre was amazed to find himself face to face with

Monsignor Nani, who had just left the Vatican on his way to the

neighbouring Palace of the Inquisition, where, as Assessor, he had his

residence.

“Ah! Monsignor,” said Pierre, “I am very pleased. My friend Monsieur

Habert is going to present me to his cousin, Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo,

and I think I shall obtain the audience I so greatly desire.”

Monsignor Nani smiled with his usual amiable yet keen expression. “Yes,

yes, I know.” But, correcting himself as it were, he added: “I share your

satisfaction, my dear son. Only, you must be prudent.” And then, as if

fearing that the young priest might have understood by his first words

that he had just seen Monsignor Gamba, the most easily terrified prelate

of the whole prudent pontifical family, he related that he had been

running about since an early hour on behalf of two French ladies, who

likewise were dying of a desire to see the Pope. However, he greatly

feared that the help he was giving them would not prove successful.

“I will confess to you, Monsignor,” replied Pierre, “that I myself was

getting very discouraged. Yes, it is high time I should find a little

comfort, for my sojourn here is hardly calculated to brace my soul.”

He went on in this strain, allowing it to be seen that the sights of Rome

were finally destroying his faith. Such days as those which he had spent

on the Palatine and along the Appian Way, in the Catacombs and at St.

Peter’s, grievously disturbed him, spoilt his dream of Christianity

rejuvenated and triumphant. He emerged from them full of doubt and

growing lassitude, having already lost much of his usually rebellious

enthusiasm.

Still smiling, Monsignor Nani listened and nodded approvingly. Yes, no

doubt that was the fatal result. He seemed to have foreseen it, and to be

well satisfied thereat. “At all events, my dear son,” said he,

“everything is going on well, since you are now certain that you will see

his Holiness.”

“That is true, Monsignor; I have placed my only hope in the very just and

perspicacious Leo XIII. He alone can judge me, since he alone can

recognise in my book his own ideas, which I think I have very faithfully

set forth. Ah! if he be willing he will, in Jesus’ name and by democracy

and science, save this old world of ours!”

Pierre’s enthusiasm was returning again, and Nani, smiling more and more

affably with his piercing eyes and thin lips, again expressed approval:

“Certainly; quite so, my dear son. You will speak to him, you will see.”

Then as they both raised their heads and looked towards the Vatican, Nani

carried his amiability so far as to undeceive Pierre with respect to the

Pope’s bed-room. No, the window where a light was seen every evening was

simply that of a landing where the gas was kept burning almost all night.

The window of his Holiness’s bed-chamber was the second one farther on.

Then both relapsed into silence, equally grave as they continued to gaze

at the facade.

“Well, till we meet again, my dear son,” said Nani at last. “You will

tell me of your interview, I hope.”

As soon as Pierre was alone he went in by the bronze portal, his heart

beating violently, as if he were entering some redoubtable sanctuary

where the future happiness of mankind was elaborated. A sentry was on

duty there, a Swiss guard, who walked slowly up and down in a grey-blue

cloak, below which one only caught a glimpse of his baggy red, black, and

yellow breeches; and it seemed as if this cloak of sober hue were

purposely cast over a disguise in order to conceal its strangeness, which

had become irksome. Then, on the right-hand, came the covered stairway

conducting to the Court of San Damaso; but to reach the Sixtine Chapel it

was necessary to follow a long gallery, with columns on either hand, and

ascend the royal staircase, the Scala Regia. And in this realm of the

gigantic, where every dimension is exaggerated and replete with

overpowering majesty, Pierre’s breath came short as he ascended the broad

steps.

He was much surprised on entering the Sixtine Chapel, for it at first

seemed to him small, a sort of rectangular and lofty hall, with a

delicate screen of white marble separating the part where guests

congregate on the occasion of great ceremonies from the choir where the

cardinals sit on simple oaken benches, while the inferior prelates remain

standing behind them. On a low platform to the right of the soberly

adorned altar is the pontifical throne; while in the wall on the left

opens the narrow singing gallery with its balcony of marble. And for

everything suddenly to spread out and soar into the infinite one must

raise one’s head, allow one’s eyes to ascend from the huge fresco of the

Last Judgment, occupying the whole of the end wall, to the paintings

which cover the vaulted ceiling down to the cornice extending between the

twelve windows of white glass, six on either hand.

Fortunately there were only three or four quiet tourists there; and

Pierre at once perceived Narcisse Habert occupying one of the cardinals’

seats above the steps where the train-bearers crouch. Motionless, and

with his head somewhat thrown back, the young man seemed to be in

ecstasy. But it was not the work of Michael Angelo that he thus

contemplated. His eyes never strayed from one of the earlier frescoes

below the cornice; and on recognising the priest he contented himself

with murmuring: “Ah! my friend, just look at the Botticelli.” Then, with

dreamy eyes, he relapsed into a state of rapture.

Pierre, for his part, had received a great shock both in heart and in

mind, overpowered as he was by the superhuman genius of Michael Angelo.

The rest vanished; there only remained, up yonder, as in a limitless

heaven, the extraordinary creations of the master’s art. That which at

first surprised one was that the painter should have been the sole

artisan of the mighty work. No marble cutters, no bronze workers, no

gilders, no one of another calling had intervened. The painter with his

brush had sufficed for all--for the pilasters, columns, and cornices of

marble, for the statues and the ornaments of bronze, for the _fleurons_

and roses of gold, for the whole of the wondrously rich decorative work

which surrounded the frescoes. And Pierre imagined Michael Angelo on the

day when the bare vault was handed over to him, covered with plaster,

offering only a flat white surface, hundreds of square yards to be

adorned. And he pictured him face to face with that huge white page,

refusing all help, driving all inquisitive folks away, jealously,

violently shutting himself up alone with his gigantic task, spending four

and a half years in fierce solitude, and day by day adding to his

colossal work of creation. Ah! that mighty work, a task to fill a whole

lifetime, a task which he must have begun with quiet confidence in his

own will and power, drawing, as it were, an entire world from his brain

and flinging it there with the ceaseless flow of creative virility in the

full heyday of its omnipotence.

And Pierre was yet more overcome when he began to examine these

presentments of humanity, magnified as by the eyes of a visionary,

overflowing in mighty sympathetic pages of cyclopean symbolisation. Royal

grace and nobility, sovereign peacefulness and power--every beauty shone

out like natural florescence. And there was perfect science, the most

audacious foreshortening risked with the certainty of success--an

everlasting triumph of technique over the difficulty which an arched

surface presented. And, in particular, there was wonderful simplicity of

medium; matter was reduced almost to nothingness; a few colours were used

broadly without any studied search for effect or brilliancy. Yet that

sufficed, the blood seethed freely, the muscles projected, the figures

became animated and stood out of their frames with such energy and dash

that it seemed as if a flame were flashing by aloft, endowing all those

beings with superhuman and immortal life. Life, aye, it was life, which

burst forth and triumphed--mighty, swarming life, miraculous life, the

creation of one sole hand possessed of the supreme gift--simplicity

blended with power.

That a philosophical system, a record of the whole of human destiny,

should have been found therein, with the creation of the world, of man,

and of woman, the fall, the chastisement, then the redemption, and

finally God’s judgment on the last day--this was a matter on which Pierre

was unable to dwell, at this first visit, in the wondering stupor into

which the paintings threw him. But he could not help noticing how the

human body, its beauty, its power, and its grace were exalted! Ah! that

regal Jehovah, at once terrible and paternal, carried off amid the

whirlwind of his creation, his arms outstretched and giving birth to

worlds! And that superb and nobly outlined Adam, with extended hand, whom

Jehovah, though he touch him not, animates with his finger--a wondrous

and admirable gesture, leaving a sacred space between the finger of the

Creator and that of the created--a tiny space, in which, nevertheless,

abides all the infinite of the invisible and the mysterious. And then

that powerful yet adorable Eve, that Eve with the sturdy flanks fit for

the bearing of humanity, that Eve with the proud, tender grace of a woman

bent on being loved even to perdition, that Eve embodying the whole of

woman with her fecundity, her seductiveness, her empire! Moreover, even

the decorative figures of the pilasters at the corners of the frescoes

celebrate the triumph of the flesh: there are the twenty young men

radiant in their nakedness, with incomparable splendour of torso and of

limb, and such intensity of life that a craze for motion seems to carry

them off, bend them, throw them over in superb attitudes. And between the

windows are the giants, the prophets and the sibyls--man and woman

deified, with inordinate wealth of muscle and grandeur of intellectual

expression. There is Jeremiah with his elbow resting on his knee and his

chin on his hand, plunged as he is in reflection--in the very depths of

his visions and his dreams; there is the Sibylla Erithraea, so pure of

profile, so young despite the opulence of her form, and with one finger

resting on the open book of destiny; there is Isaiah with the thick lips

of truth, virile and haughty, his head half turned and his hand raised

with a gesture of command; there is the Sibylla Cumaea, terrifying with

her science and her old age, her wrinkled countenance, her vulture’s

nose, her square protruding chin; there is Jonah cast forth by the whale,

and wondrously foreshortened, his torso twisted, his arms bent, his head

thrown back, and his mouth agape and shouting: and there are the others,

all of the same full-blown, majestic family, reigning with the

sovereignty of eternal health and intelligence, and typifying the dream

of a broader, loftier, and indestructible humanity. Moreover, in the

lunettes and the arches over the windows other figures of grace, power,

and beauty appear and throng, the ancestors of the Christ, thoughtful

mothers with lovely nude infants, men with wondering eyes peering into

the future, representatives of the punished weary race longing for the

promised Redeemer; while in the pendentives of the four corners various

biblical episodes, the victories of Israel over the Spirit of Evil,

spring into life. And finally there is the gigantic fresco at the far

end, the Last Judgment with its swarming multitude, so numerous that days

and days are needed to see each figure aright, a distracted crowd, full

of the hot breath of life, from the dead rising in response to the

furious trumpeting of the angels, from the fearsome groups of the damned

whom the demons fling into hell, even to Jesus the justiciar, surrounded

by the saints and apostles, and to the radiant concourse of the blessed

who ascend upheld by angels, whilst higher and still higher other angels,

bearing the instruments of the Passion, triumph as in full glory. And

yet, above this gigantic composition, painted thirty years subsequently,

in the full ripeness of age, the ceiling retains its ethereality, its

unquestionable superiority, for on it the artist bestowed all his virgin

power, his whole youth, the first great flare of his genius.

And Pierre found but one word to express his feelings: Michael Angelo was

the monster dominating and crushing all others. Beneath his immense

achievement you had only to glance at the works of Perugino,

Pinturicchio, Roselli, Signorelli, and Botticelli, those earlier

frescoes, admirable in their way, which below the cornice spread out

around the chapel.

Narcisse for his part had not raised his eyes to the overpowering

splendour of the ceiling. Wrapt in ecstasy, he did not allow his gaze to

stray from one of the three frescoes of Botticelli. “Ah! Botticelli,” he

at last murmured; “in him you have the elegance and the grace of the

mysterious; a profound feeling of sadness even in the midst of

voluptuousness, a divination of the whole modern soul, with the most

troublous charm that ever attended artist’s work.”

Pierre glanced at him in amazement, and then ventured to inquire: “You

come here to see the Botticellis?”

“Yes, certainly,” the young man quietly replied; “I only come here for

him, and five hours every week I only look at his work. There, just study

that fresco, Moses and the daughters of Jethro. Isn’t it the most

penetrating work that human tenderness and melancholy have produced?”

Then, with a faint, devout quiver in his voice and the air of a priest

initiating another into the delightful but perturbing atmosphere of a

sanctuary, he went on repeating the praises of Botticelli’s art; his

women with long, sensual, yet candid faces, supple bearing, and rounded

forms showing from under light drapery; his young men, his angels of

doubtful sex, blending stateliness of muscle with infinite delicacy of

outline; next the mouths he painted, fleshy, fruit-like mouths, at times

suggesting irony, at others pain, and often so enigmatical with their

sinuous curves that one knew not whether the words they left unuttered

were words of purity or filth; then, too, the eyes which he bestowed on

his figures, eyes of languor and passion, of carnal or mystical rapture,

their joy at times so instinct with grief as they peer into the nihility

of human things that no eyes in the world could be more impenetrable. And

finally there were Botticelli’s hands, so carefully and delicately

painted, so full of life, wantoning so to say in a free atmosphere, now

joining, caressing, and even, as it were, speaking, the whole evincing

such intense solicitude for gracefulness that at times there seems to be

undue mannerism, though every hand has its particular expression, each

varying expression of the enjoyment or pain which the sense of touch can

bring. And yet there was nothing effeminate or false about the painter’s

work: on all sides a sort of virile pride was apparent, an atmosphere of

superb passionate motion, absolute concern for truth, direct study from

life, conscientiousness, veritable realism, corrected and elevated by a

genial strangeness of feeling and character that imparted a

never-to-be-forgotten charm even to ugliness itself.

Pierre’s stupefaction, however, increased as he listened to Narcisse,

whose somewhat studied elegance, whose curly hair cut in the Florentine

fashion, and whose blue, mauvish eyes paling with enthusiasm he now for

the first time remarked. “Botticelli,” he at last said, “was no doubt a

marvellous artist, only it seems to me that here, at any rate, Michael

Angelo--”

But Narcisse interrupted him almost with violence. “No! no! Don’t talk of

him! He spoilt everything, ruined everything! A man who harnessed himself

to his work like an ox, who laboured at his task like a navvy, at the

rate of so many square yards a day! And a man, too, with no sense of the

mysterious and the unknown, who saw everything so huge as to disgust one

with beauty, painting girls like the trunks of oak-trees, women like

giant butchers, with heaps and heaps of stupid flesh, and never a gleam

of a divine or infernal soul! He was a mason--a colossal mason, if you

like--but he was nothing more.”

Weary “modern” that Narcisse was, spoilt by the pursuit of the original

and the rare, he thus unconsciously gave rein to his fated hate of health

and power. That Michael Angelo who brought forth without an effort, who

had left behind him the most prodigious of all artistic creations, was

the enemy. And his crime precisely was that he had created life, produced

life in such excess that all the petty creations of others, even the most

delightful among them, vanished in presence of the overflowing torrent of

human beings flung there all alive in the sunlight.

“Well, for my part,” Pierre courageously declared, “I’m not of your

opinion. I now realise that life is everything in art; that real

immortality belongs only to those who create. The case of Michael Angelo

seems to me decisive, for he is the superhuman master, the monster who

overwhelms all others, precisely because he brought forth that

magnificent living flesh which offends your sense of delicacy. Those who

are inclined to the curious, those who have minds of a pretty turn, whose

intellects are ever seeking to penetrate things, may try to improve on

the equivocal and invisible, and set all the charm of art in some

elaborate stroke or symbolisation; but, none the less, Michael Angelo

remains the all-powerful, the maker of men, the master of clearness,

simplicity, and health.”

At this Narcisse smiled with indulgent and courteous disdain. And he

anticipated further argument by remarking: “It’s already eleven. My

cousin was to have sent a servant here as soon as he could receive us. I

am surprised to have seen nobody as yet. Shall we go up to see the

_stanze_ of Raffaelle while we wait?”

Once in the rooms above, he showed himself perfect, both lucid in his

remarks and just in his appreciations, having recovered all his easy

intelligence as soon as he was no longer upset by his hatred of colossal

labour and cheerful decoration.

It was unfortunate that Pierre should have first visited the Sixtine

Chapel; for it was necessary he should forget what he had just seen and

accustom himself to what he now beheld in order to enjoy its pure beauty.

It was as if some potent wine had confused him, and prevented any

immediate relish of a lighter vintage of delicate fragrance. Admiration

did not here fall upon one with lightning speed; it was slowly,

irresistibly that one grew charmed. And the contrast was like that of

Racine beside Corneille, Lamartine beside Hugo, the eternal pair, the

masculine and feminine genius coupled through centuries of glory. With

Raffaelle it is nobility, grace, exquisiteness, and correctness of line,

and divineness of harmony that triumph. You do not find in him merely the

materialist symbolism so superbly thrown off by Michael Angelo; he

introduces psychological analysis of deep penetration into the painter’s

art. Man is shown more purified, idealised; one sees more of that which

is within him. And though one may be in presence of an artist of

sentimental bent, a feminine genius whose quiver of tenderness one can

feel, it is also certain that admirable firmness of workmanship confronts

one, that the whole is very strong and very great. Pierre gradually

yielded to such sovereign masterliness, such virile elegance, such a

vision of supreme beauty set in supreme perfection. But if the “Dispute

on the Sacrament” and the so-called “School of Athens,” both prior to the

paintings of the Sixtine Chapel, seemed to him to be Raffaelle’s

masterpieces, he felt that in the “Burning of the Borgo,” and

particularly in the “Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple,” and “Pope

St. Leo staying Attila at the Gates of Rome,” the artist had lost the

flower of his divine grace, through the deep impression which the

overwhelming grandeur of Michael Angelo had wrought upon him. How

crushing indeed had been the blow when the Sixtine Chapel was thrown open

and the rivals entered! The creations of the monster then appeared, and

the greatest of the humanisers lost some of his soul at sight of them,

thenceforward unable to rid himself of their influence.

From the _stanze_ Narcisse took Pierre to the _loggie_, those glazed

galleries which are so high and so delicately decorated. But here you

only find work which pupils executed after designs left by Raffaelle at

his death. The fall was sudden and complete, and never had Pierre better

understood that genius is everything--that when it disappears the school

collapses. The man of genius sums up his period; at a given hour he

throws forth all the sap of the social soil, which afterwards remains

exhausted often for centuries. So Pierre became more particularly

interested in the fine view that the _loggie_ afford, and all at once he

noticed that the papal apartments were in front of him, just across the

Court of San Damaso. This court, with its porticus, fountain, and white

pavement, had an aspect of empty, airy, sunlit solemnity which surprised

him. There was none of the gloom or pent-up religious mystery that he had

dreamt of with his mind full of the surroundings of the old northern

cathedrals. Right and left of the steps conducting to the rooms of the

Pope and the Cardinal Secretary of State four or five carriages were

ranged, the coachmen stiffly erect and the horses motionless in the

brilliant light; and nothing else peopled that vast square desert of a

court which, with its bareness gilded by the coruscations of its

glass-work and the ruddiness of its stones, suggested a pagan temple

dedicated to the sun. But what more particularly struck Pierre was the

splendid panorama of Rome, for he had not hitherto imagined that the Pope

from his windows could thus behold the entire city spread out before him

as if he merely had to stretch forth his hand to make it his own once

more.

While Pierre contemplated the scene a sound of voices caused him to turn;

and he perceived a servant in black livery who, after repeating a message

to Narcisse, was retiring with a deep bow. Looking much annoyed, the

_attache_ approached the young priest. “Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo,” said

he, “has sent word that he can’t see us this morning. Some unexpected

duties require his presence.” However, Narcisse’s embarrassment showed

that he did not believe in the excuse, but rather suspected some one of

having so terrified his cousin that the latter was afraid of compromising

himself. Obliging and courageous as Habert himself was, this made him

indignant. Still he smiled and resumed: “Listen, perhaps there’s a means

of forcing an entry. If your time is your own we can lunch together and

then return to visit the Museum of Antiquities. I shall certainly end by

coming across my cousin and we may, perhaps, be lucky enough to meet the

Pope should he go down to the gardens.”

At the news that his audience was yet again postponed Pierre had felt

keenly disappointed. However, as the whole day was at his disposal, he

willingly accepted the _attache’s_ offer. They lunched in front of St.

Peter’s, in a little restaurant of the Borgo, most of whose customers

were pilgrims, and the fare, as it happened, was far from good. Then at

about two o’clock they set off for the museum, skirting the basilica by

way of the Piazza della Sagrestia. It was a bright, deserted, burning

district; and again, but in a far greater degree, did the young priest

experience that sensation of bare, tawny, sun-baked majesty which had

come upon him while gazing into the Court of San Damaso. Then, as he

passed the apse of St. Peter’s, the enormity of the colossus was brought

home to him more strongly than ever: it rose like a giant bouquet of

architecture edged by empty expanses of pavement sprinkled with fine

weeds. And in all the silent immensity there were only two children

playing in the shadow of a wall. The old papal mint, the Zecca, now an

Italian possession, and guarded by soldiers of the royal army, is on the

left of the passage leading to the museums, while on the right, just in

front, is one of the entrances of honour to the Vatican where the papal

Swiss Guard keeps watch and ward; and this is the entrance by which,

according to etiquette, the pair-horse carriages convey the Pope’s

visitors into the Court of San Damaso.

Following the long lane which ascends between a wing of the palace and

its garden wall, Narcisse and Pierre at last reached the Museum of

Antiquities. Ah! what a museum it is, with galleries innumerable, a

museum compounded of three museums, the Pio-Clementino, Chiaramonti, and

the Braccio-Nuovo, and containing a whole world found beneath the soil,

then exhumed, and now glorified in full sunlight. For more than two hours

Pierre went from one hall to another, dazzled by the masterpieces,

bewildered by the accumulation of genius and beauty. It was not only the

celebrated examples of statuary, the Laocoon and the Apollo of the

cabinets of the Belvedere, the Meleager, or even the torso of

Hercules--that astonished him. He was yet more impressed by the

_ensemble_, by the innumerable quantities of Venuses, Bacchuses, and

deified emperors and empresses, by the whole superb growth of beautiful

or August flesh celebrating the immortality of life. Three days

previously he had visited the Museum of the Capitol, where he had admired

the Venus, the Dying Gaul,* the marvellous Centaurs of black marble, and

the extraordinary collection of busts, but here his admiration became

intensified into stupor by the inexhaustible wealth of the galleries.

And, with more curiosity for life than for art, perhaps, he again

lingered before the busts which so powerfully resuscitate the Rome of

history--the Rome which, whilst incapable of realising the ideal beauty

of Greece, was certainly well able to create life. The emperors, the

philosophers, the learned men, the poets are all there, and live such as

they really were, studied and portrayed in all scrupulousness with their

deformities, their blemishes, the slightest peculiarities of their

features. And from this extreme solicitude for truth springs a wonderful

wealth of character and an incomparable vision of the past. Nothing,

indeed, could be loftier: the very men live once more, and retrace the

history of their city, that history which has been so falsified that the

teaching of it has caused generations of school-boys to hold antiquity in

horror. But on seeing the men, how well one understands, how fully one

can sympathise! And indeed the smallest bits of marble, the maimed

statues, the bas-reliefs in fragments, even the isolated limbs--whether

the divine arm of a nymph or the sinewy, shaggy thigh of a satyr--evoke

the splendour of a civilisation full of light, grandeur, and strength.

* Best known in England, through Byron’s lines, as the

Dying Gladiator, though that appellation is certainly

erroneous.--Trans.

At last Narcisse brought Pierre back into the Gallery of the Candelabra,

three hundred feet in length and full of fine examples of sculpture.

“Listen, my dear Abbe,” said he. “It is scarcely more than four o’clock,

and we will sit down here for a while, as I am told that the Holy Father

sometimes passes this way to go down to the gardens. It would be really

lucky if you could see him, perhaps even speak to him--who can tell? At

all events, it will rest you, for you must be tired out.”

Narcisse was known to all the attendants, and his relationship to

Monsignor Gamba gave him the run of almost the entire Vatican, where he

was fond of spending his leisure time. Finding two chairs, they sat down,

and the _attache_ again began to talk of art.

How astonishing had been the destiny of Rome, what a singular, borrowed

royalty had been hers! She seemed like a centre whither the whole world

converged, but where nothing grew from the soil itself, which from the

outset appeared to be stricken with sterility. The arts required to be

acclimatised there; it was necessary to transplant the genius of

neighbouring nations, which, once there, however, flourished

magnificently. Under the emperors, when Rome was the queen of the earth,

the beauty of her monuments and sculpture came to her from Greece. Later,

when Christianity arose in Rome, it there remained impregnated with

paganism; it was on another soil that it produced Gothic art, the

Christian Art _par excellence_. Later still, at the Renascence, it was

certainly at Rome that the age of Julius II and Leo X shone forth; but

the artists of Tuscany and Umbria prepared the evolution, brought it to

Rome that it might thence expand and soar. For the second time, indeed,

art came to Rome from without, and gave her the royalty of the world by

blossoming so triumphantly within her walls. Then occurred the

extraordinary awakening of antiquity, Apollo and Venus resuscitated

worshipped by the popes themselves, who from the time of Nicholas V

dreamt of making papal Rome the equal of the imperial city. After the

precursors, so sincere, tender, and strong in their art--Fra Angelico,

Perugino, Botticelli, and so many others--came the two sovereigns,

Michael Angelo and Raffaelle, the superhuman and the divine. Then the

fall was sudden, years elapsed before the advent of Caravaggio with power

of colour and modelling, all that the science of painting could achieve

when bereft of genius. And afterwards the decline continued until Bernini

was reached--Bernini, the real creator of the Rome of the present popes,

the prodigal child who at twenty could already show a galaxy of colossal

marble wenches, the universal architect who with fearful activity

finished the facade, built the colonnade, decorated the interior of St.

Peter’s, and raised fountains, churches, and palaces innumerable. And

that was the end of all, for since then Rome has little by little

withdrawn from life, from the modern world, as though she, who always

lived on what she derived from others, were dying of her inability to

take anything more from them in order to convert it to her own glory.

“Ah! Bernini, that delightful Bernini!” continued Narcisse with his

rapturous air. “He is both powerful and exquisite, his verve always

ready, his ingenuity invariably awake, his fecundity full of grace and

magnificence. As for their Bramante with his masterpiece, that cold,

correct Cancelleria, we’ll dub him the Michael Angelo and Raffaelle of

architecture and say no more about it. But Bernini, that exquisite

Bernini, why, there is more delicacy and refinement in his pretended bad

taste than in all the hugeness and perfection of the others! Our own age

ought to recognise itself in his art, at once so varied and so deep, so

triumphant in its mannerisms, so full of a perturbing solicitude for the

artificial and so free from the baseness of reality. Just go to the Villa

Borghese to see the group of Apollo and Daphne which Bernini executed

when he was eighteen,* and in particular see his statue of Santa Teresa

in ecstasy at Santa Maria della Vittoria! Ah! that Santa Teresa! It is

like heaven opening, with the quiver that only a purely divine enjoyment

can set in woman’s flesh, the rapture of faith carried to the point of

spasm, the creature losing breath and dying of pleasure in the arms of

the Divinity! I have spent hours and hours before that work without

exhausting the infinite scope of its precious, burning symbolisation.”

* There is also at the Villa Borghese Bernini’s _Anchises carried

by Aeneas_, which he sculptured when only sixteen. No doubt his

faults were many; but it was his misfortune to belong to a

decadent period.--Trans.

Narcisse’s voice died away, and Pierre, no longer astonished at his

covert, unconscious hatred of health, simplicity, and strength, scarcely

listened to him. The young priest himself was again becoming absorbed in

the idea he had formed of pagan Rome resuscitating in Christian Rome and

turning it into Catholic Rome, the new political, sacerdotal, domineering

centre of earthly government. Apart from the primitive age of the

Catacombs, had Rome ever been Christian? The thoughts that had come to

him on the Palatine, in the Appian Way, and in St. Peter’s were gathering

confirmation. Genius that morning had brought him fresh proof. No doubt

the paganism which reappeared in the art of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle

was tempered, transformed by the Christian spirit. But did it not still

remain the basis? Had not the former master peered across Olympus when

snatching his great nudities from the terrible heavens of Jehovah? Did

not the ideal figures of Raffaelle reveal the superb, fascinating flesh

of Venus beneath the chaste veil of the Virgin? It seemed so to Pierre,

and some embarrassment mingled with his despondency, for all those

beautiful forms glorifying the ardent passions of life, were in

opposition to his dream of rejuvenated Christianity giving peace to the

world and reviving the simplicity and purity of the early ages.

All at once he was surprised to hear Narcisse, by what transition he

could not tell, speaking to him of the daily life of Leo XIII. “Yes, my

dear Abbe, at eighty-four* the Holy Father shows the activity of a young

man and leads a life of determination and hard work such as neither you

nor I would care for! At six o’clock he is already up, says his mass in

his private chapel, and drinks a little milk for breakfast. Then, from

eight o’clock till noon, there is a ceaseless procession of cardinals and

prelates, all the affairs of the congregations passing under his eyes,

and none could be more numerous or intricate. At noon the public and

collective audiences usually begin. At two he dines. Then comes the

siesta which he has well earned, or else a promenade in the gardens until

six o’clock. The private audiences then sometimes keep him for an hour or

two. He sups at nine and scarcely eats, lives on nothing, in fact, and is

always alone at his little table. What do you think, eh, of the etiquette

which compels him to such loneliness? There you have a man who for

eighteen years has never had a guest at his table, who day by day sits

all alone in his grandeur! And as soon as ten o’clock strikes, after

saying the Rosary with his familiars, he shuts himself up in his room.

But, although he may go to bed, he sleeps very little; he is frequently

troubled by insomnia, and gets up and sends for a secretary to dictate

memoranda or letters to him. When any interesting matter requires his

attention he gives himself up to it heart and soul, never letting it

escape his thoughts. And his life, his health, lies in all this. His mind

is always busy; his will and strength must always be exerting themselves.

You may know that he long cultivated Latin verse with affection; and I

believe that in his days of struggle he had a passion for journalism,

inspired the articles of the newspapers he subsidised, and even dictated

some of them when his most cherished ideas were in question.”

* The reader should remember that the period selected for this

narrative is the year 1894. Leo XIII was born in 1810.--Trans.

Silence fell. At every moment Narcisse craned his neck to see if the

little papal _cortege_ were not emerging from the Gallery of the

Tapestries to pass them on its way to the gardens. “You are perhaps

aware,” he resumed, “that his Holiness is brought down on a low chair

which is small enough to pass through every doorway. It’s quite a

journey, more than a mile, through the _loggie_, the _stanze_ of

Raffaelle, the painting and sculpture galleries, not to mention the

numerous staircases, before he reaches the gardens, where a pair-horse

carriage awaits him. It’s quite fine this evening, so he will surely

come. We must have a little patience.”

Whilst Narcisse was giving these particulars Pierre again sank into a

reverie and saw the whole extraordinary history pass before him. First

came the worldly, ostentatious popes of the Renascence, those who

resuscitated antiquity with so much passion and dreamt of draping the

Holy See with the purple of empire once more. There was Paul II, the

magnificent Venetian who built the Palazzo di Venezia; Sixtus IV, to whom

one owes the Sixtine Chapel; and Julius II and Leo X, who made Rome a

city of theatrical pomp, prodigious festivities, tournaments, ballets,

hunts, masquerades, and banquets. At that time the papacy had just

rediscovered Olympus amidst the dust of buried ruins, and as though

intoxicated by the torrent of life which arose from the ancient soil, it

founded the museums, thus reviving the superb temples of the pagan age,

and restoring them to the cult of universal admiration. Never had the

Church been in such peril of death, for if the Christ was still honoured

at St. Peter’s, Jupiter and all the other gods and goddesses, with their

beauteous, triumphant flesh, were enthroned in the halls of the Vatican.

Then, however, another vision passed before Pierre, one of the modern

popes prior to the Italian occupation--notably Pius IX, who, whilst yet

free, often went into his good city of Rome. His huge red and gold coach

was drawn by six horses, surrounded by Swiss Guards and followed by Noble

Guards; but now and again he would alight in the Corso, and continue his

promenade on foot, and then the mounted men of the escort galloped

forward to give warning and stop the traffic. The carriages drew up, the

gentlemen had to alight and kneel on the pavement, whilst the ladies

simply rose and devoutly inclined their heads, as the Holy Father,

attended by his Court, slowly wended his way to the Piazza del Popolo,

smiling and blessing at every step. And now had come Leo XIII, the

voluntary prisoner, shut up in the Vatican for eighteen years, and he,

behind the high, silent walls, in the unknown sphere where each of his

days flowed by so quietly, had acquired a more exalted majesty, instinct

with sacred and redoubtable mysteriousness.

Ah! that Pope whom you no longer meet or see, that Pope hidden from the

common of mankind like some terrible divinity whom the priests alone dare

to approach! It is in that sumptuous Vatican which his forerunners of the

Renascence built and adorned for giant festivities that he has secluded

himself; it is there he lives, far from the crowd, in prison with the

handsome men and the lovely women of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle, with

the gods and goddesses of marble, with the whole of resplendent Olympus

celebrating around him the religion of life and light. With him the

entire Papacy is there steeped in paganism. What a spectacle when the

slender, weak old man, all soul, so purely white, passes along the

galleries of the Museum of Antiquities on his way to the gardens. Right

and left the statues behold him pass with all their bare flesh. There is

Jupiter, there is Apollo, there is Venus the _dominatrix_, there is Pan,

the universal god in whose laugh the joys of earth ring out. Nereids

bathe in transparent water. Bacchantes roll, unveiled, in the warm grass.

Centaurs gallop by carrying lovely girls, faint with rapture, on their

steaming haunches. Ariadne is surprised by Bacchus, Ganymede fondles the

eagle, Adonis fires youth and maiden with his flame. And on and on passes

the weak, white old man, swaying on his low chair, amidst that splendid

triumph, that display and glorification of the flesh, which shouts aloud

the omnipotence of Nature, of everlasting matter! Since they have found

it again, exhumed it, and honoured it, that it is which once more reigns

there imperishable; and in vain have they set vine leaves on the statues,

even as they have swathed the huge figures of Michael Angelo; sex still

flares on all sides, life overflows, its germs course in torrents through

the veins of the world. Near by, in that Vatican library of incomparable

wealth, where all human science lies slumbering, there lurks a yet more

terrible danger--the danger of an explosion which would sweep away

everything, Vatican and St. Peter’s also, if one day the books in their

turn were to awake and speak aloud as speak the beauty of Venus and the

manliness of Apollo. But the white, diaphanous old man seems neither to

see nor to hear, and the huge heads of Jupiter, the trunks of Hercules,

the equivocal statues of Antinous continue to watch him as he passes on!

However, Narcisse had become impatient, and, going in search of an

attendant, he learnt from him that his Holiness had already gone down. To

shorten the distance, indeed, the _cortege_ often passes along a kind of

open gallery leading towards the Mint. “Well, let us go down as well,”

said Narcisse to Pierre; “I will try to show you the gardens.”

Down below, in the vestibule, a door of which opened on to a broad path,

he spoke to another attendant, a former pontifical soldier whom he

personally knew. The man at once let him pass with Pierre, but was unable

to tell him whether Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo had accompanied his

Holiness that day.

“No matter,” resumed Narcisse when he and his companion were alone in the

path; “I don’t despair of meeting him--and these, you see, are the famous

gardens of the Vatican.”

They are very extensive grounds, and the Pope can go quite two and a half

miles by passing along the paths of the wood, the vineyard, and the

kitchen garden. Occupying the plateau of the Vatican hill, which the

medieval wall of Leo IV still girdles, the gardens are separated from the

neighbouring valleys as by a fortified rampart. The wall formerly

stretched to the castle of Sant’ Angelo, thereby forming what was known

as the Leonine City. No inquisitive eyes can peer into the grounds

excepting from the dome of St. Peter’s, which casts its huge shadow over

them during the hot summer weather. They are, too, quite a little world,

which each pope has taken pleasure in embellishing. There is a large

parterre with lawns of geometrical patterns, planted with handsome palms

and adorned with lemon and orange trees in pots; there is a less formal,

a shadier garden, where, amidst deep plantations of yoke-elms, you find

Giovanni Vesanzio’s fountain, the Aquilone, and Pius IV’s old Casino;

then, too, there are the woods with their superb evergreen oaks, their

thickets of plane-trees, acacias, and pines, intersected by broad

avenues, which are delightfully pleasant for leisurely strolls; and

finally, on turning to the left, beyond other clumps of trees, come the

kitchen garden and the vineyard, the last well tended.

Whilst walking through the wood Narcisse told Pierre of the life led by

the Holy Father in these gardens. He strolls in them every second day

when the weather allows. Formerly the popes left the Vatican for the

Quirinal, which is cooler and healthier, as soon as May arrived; and

spent the dog days at Castle Gandolfo on the margins of the Lake of

Albano. But nowadays the only summer residence possessed by his Holiness

is a virtually intact tower of the old rampart of Leo IV. He here spends

the hottest days, and has even erected a sort of pavilion beside it for

the accommodation of his suite. Narcisse, like one at home, went in and

secured permission for Pierre to glance at the one room occupied by the

Pope, a spacious round chamber with semispherical ceiling, on which are

painted the heavens with symbolical figures of the constellations; one of

the latter, the lion, having two stars for eyes--stars which a system of

lighting causes to sparkle during the night. The walls of the tower are

so thick that after blocking up a window, a kind of room, for the

accommodation of a couch, has been contrived in the embrasure. Beside

this couch the only furniture is a large work-table, a dining-table with

flaps, and a large regal arm-chair, a mass of gilding, one of the gifts

of the Pope’s episcopal jubilee. And you dream of the days of solitude

and perfect silence, spent in that low donjon hall, where the coolness of

a tomb prevails whilst the heavy suns of August are scorching overpowered

Rome.

An astronomical observatory has been installed in another tower,

surmounted by a little white cupola, which you espy amidst the greenery;

and under the trees there is also a Swiss chalet, where Leo XIII is fond

of resting. He sometimes goes on foot to the kitchen garden, and takes

much interest in the vineyard, visiting it to see if the grapes are

ripening and if the vintage will be a good one. What most astonished

Pierre, however, was to learn that the Holy Father had been very fond of

“sport” before age had weakened him. He was indeed passionately addicted

to bird snaring. Broad-meshed nets were hung on either side of a path on

the fringe of a plantation, and in the middle of the path were placed

cages containing the decoys, whose songs soon attracted all the birds of

the neighbourhood--red-breasts, white-throats, black-caps, nightingales,

fig-peckers of all sorts. And when a numerous company of them was

gathered together Leo XIII, seated out of sight and watching, would

suddenly clap his hands and startle the birds, which flew up and were

caught by the wings in the meshes of the nets. All that then remained to

be done was to take them out of the nets and stifle them by a touch of

the thumb. Roast fig-peckers are delicious.*

* Perhaps so; but what a delightful pastime for the Vicar of the

Divinity!--Trans.

As Pierre came back through the wood he had another surprise. He suddenly

lighted on a “Grotto of Lourdes,” a miniature imitation of the original,

built of rocks and blocks of cement. And such was his emotion at the

sight that he could not conceal it. “It’s true, then!” said he. “I was

told of it, but I thought that the Holy Father was of loftier mind--free

from all such base superstitions!”

“Oh!” replied Narcisse, “I fancy that the grotto dates from Pius IX, who

evinced especial gratitude to our Lady of Lourdes. At all events, it must

be a gift, and Leo XIII simply keeps it in repair.”

For a few moments Pierre remained motionless and silent before that

imitation grotto, that childish plaything. Some zealously devout visitors

had left their visiting cards in the cracks of the cement-work! For his

part, he felt very sad, and followed his companion with bowed head,

lamenting the wretched idiocy of the world. Then, on emerging from the

wood, on again reaching the parterre, he raised his eyes.

Ah! how exquisite in spite of everything was that decline of a lovely

day, and what a victorious charm ascended from the soil in that part of

the gardens. There, in front of that bare, noble, burning parterre, far

more than under the languishing foliage of the wood or among the fruitful

vines, Pierre realised the strength of Nature. Above the grass growing

meagrely over the compartments of geometrical pattern which the pathways

traced there were barely a few low shrubs, dwarf roses, aloes, rare tufts

of withering flowers. Some green bushes still described the escutcheon of

Pius IX in accordance with the strange taste of former times. And amidst

the warm silence one only heard the faint crystalline murmur of the water

trickling from the basin of the central fountain. But all Rome, its

ardent heavens, sovereign grace, and conquering voluptuousness, seemed

with their own soul to animate this vast rectangular patch of decorative

gardening, this mosaic of verdure, which in its semi-abandonment and

scorched decay assumed an aspect of melancholy pride, instinct with the

ever returning quiver of a passion of fire that could not die. Some

antique vases and statues, whitely nude under the setting sun, skirted

the parterres. And above the aroma of eucalyptus and of pine, stronger

even than that of the ripening oranges, there rose the odour of the

large, bitter box-shrubs, so laden with pungent life that it disturbed

one as one passed as if indeed it were the very scent of the fecundity of

that ancient soil saturated with the dust of generations.

“It’s very strange that we have not met his Holiness,” exclaimed

Narcisse. “Perhaps his carriage took the other path through the wood

while we were in the tower.”

Then, reverting to Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo, the _attache_ explained

that the functions of _Copiere_, or papal cup-bearer, which his cousin

should have discharged as one of the four _Camerieri segreti

partecipanti_ had become purely honorary since the dinners offered to

diplomatists or in honour of newly consecrated bishops had been given by

the Cardinal Secretary of State. Monsignor Gamba, whose cowardice and

nullity were legendary, seemed therefore to have no other _role_ than

that of enlivening Leo XIII, whose favour he had won by his incessant

flattery and the anecdotes which he was ever relating about both the

black and the white worlds. Indeed this fat, amiable man, who could even

be obliging when his interests were not in question, was a perfect

newspaper, brimful of tittle-tattle, disdaining no item of gossip

whatever, even if it came from the kitchens. And thus he was quietly

marching towards the cardinalate, certain of obtaining the hat without

other exertion than that of bringing a budget of gossip to beguile the

pleasant hours of the promenade. And Heaven knew that he was always able

to garner an abundant harvest of news in that closed Vatican swarming

with prelates of every kind, in that womanless pontifical family of old

begowned bachelors, all secretly exercised by vast ambitions, covert and

revolting rivalries, and ferocious hatreds, which, it is said, are still

sometimes carried as far as the good old poison of ancient days.

All at once Narcisse stopped. “Ah!” he exclaimed, “I was certain of it.

There’s the Holy Father! But we are not in luck. He won’t even see us; he

is about to get into his carriage again.”

As he spoke a carriage drew up at the verge of the wood, and a little

_cortege_ emerging from a narrow path, went towards it.

Pierre felt as if he had received a great blow in the heart. Motionless

beside his companion, and half hidden by a lofty vase containing a

lemon-tree, it was only from a distance that he was able to see the white

old man, looking so frail and slender in the wavy folds of his white

cassock, and walking so very slowly with short, gliding steps. The young

priest could scarcely distinguish the emaciated face of old diaphanous

ivory, emphasised by a large nose which jutted out above thin lips.

However, the Pontiff’s black eyes were glittering with an inquisitive

smile, while his right ear was inclined towards Monsignor Gamba del

Zoppo, who was doubtless finishing some story at once rich and short,

flowery and dignified. And on the left walked a Noble Guard; and two

other prelates followed.

It was but a familiar apparition; Leo XIII was already climbing into the

closed carriage. And Pierre, in the midst of that large, odoriferous,

burning garden, again experienced the singular emotion which had come

upon him in the Gallery of the Candelabra while he was picturing the Pope

on his way between the Apollos and Venuses radiant in their triumphant

nudity. There, however, it was only pagan art which had celebrated the

eternity of life, the superb, almighty powers of Nature. But here he had

beheld the Pontiff steeped in Nature itself, in Nature clad in the most

lovely, most voluptuous, most passionate guise. Ah! that Pope, that old

man strolling with his Divinity of grief, humility, and renunciation

along the paths of those gardens of love, in the languid evenings of the

hot summer days, beneath the caressing scents of pine and eucalyptus,

ripe oranges, and tall, acrid box-shrubs! The whole atmosphere around him

proclaimed the powers of the great god Pan. How pleasant was the thought

of living there, amidst that magnificence of heaven and of earth, of

loving the beauty of woman and of rejoicing in the fruitfulness of all!

And suddenly the decisive truth burst forth that from a land of such joy

and light it was only possible for a temporal religion of conquest and

political domination to rise; not the mystical, pain-fraught religion of

the North--the religion of the soul!

However, Narcisse led the young priest away, telling him other anecdotes

as they went--anecdotes of the occasional _bonhomie_ of Leo XIII, who

would stop to chat with the gardeners, and question them about the health

of the trees and the sale of the oranges. And he also mentioned the

Pope’s former passion for a pair of gazelles, sent him from Africa, two

graceful creatures which he had been fond of caressing, and at whose

death he had shed tears. But Pierre no longer listened. When they found

themselves on the Piazza of St. Peter’s, he turned round and gazed at the

Vatican once more.

His eyes had fallen on the gate of bronze, and he remembered having

wondered that morning what there might be behind these metal panels

ornamented with big nails. And he did not yet dare to answer the

question, and decide if the new nations thirsting for fraternity and

justice would really find there the religion necessary for the

democracies of to-morrow; for he had not been able to probe things, and

only carried a first impression away with him. But how keen it was, and

how ill it boded for his dreams! A gate of bronze! Yes, a hard,

impregnable gate, so completely shutting the Vatican off from the rest of

the world that nothing new had entered the palace for three hundred

years. Behind that portal the old centuries, as far as the sixteenth,

remained immutable. Time seemed to have stayed its course there for ever;

nothing more stirred; the very costumes of the Swiss Guards, the Noble

Guards, and the prelates themselves were unchanged; and you found

yourself in the world of three hundred years ago, with its etiquette, its

costumes, and its ideas. That the popes in a spirit of haughty protest

should for five and twenty years have voluntarily shut themselves up in

their palace was already regrettable; but this imprisonment of centuries

within the past, within the grooves of tradition, was far more serious

and dangerous. It was all Catholicism which was thus imprisoned, whose

dogmas and sacerdotal organisation were obstinately immobilised. Perhaps,

in spite of its apparent flexibility, Catholicism was really unable to

yield in anything, under peril of being swept away, and therein lay both

its weakness and its strength. And then what a terrible world was there,

how great the pride and ambition, how numerous the hatreds and rivalries!

And how strange the prison, how singular the company assembled behind the

bars--the Crucified by the side of Jupiter Capitolinus, all pagan

antiquity fraternising with the Apostles, all the splendours of the

Renascence surrounding the pastor of the Gospel who reigns in the name of

the humble and the poor!

The sun was sinking, the gentle, luscious sweetness of the Roman evenings

was falling from the limpid heavens, and after that splendid day spent

with Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, the ancients, and the Pope, in the finest

palace of the world, the young priest lingered, distracted, on the Piazza

of St. Peter’s.

“Well, you must excuse me, my dear Abbe,” concluded Narcisse. “But I will

now confess to you that I suspect my worthy cousin of a fear that he

might compromise himself by meddling in your affair. I shall certainly

see him again, but you will do well not to put too much reliance on him.”

It was nearly six o’clock when Pierre got back to the Boccanera mansion.

As a rule, he passed in all modesty down the lane, and entered by the

little side door, a key of which had been given him. But he had that

morning received a letter from M. de la Choue, and desired to communicate

it to Benedetta. So he ascended the grand staircase, and on reaching the

anteroom was surprised to find nobody there. As a rule, whenever the

man-servant went out Victorine installed herself in his place and busied

herself with some needlework. Her chair was there, and Pierre even

noticed some linen which she had left on a little table when probably

summoned elsewhere. Then, as the door of the first reception-room was

ajar, he at last ventured in. It was almost night there already, the

twilight was softly dying away, and all at once the young priest stopped

short, fearing to take another step, for, from the room beyond, the large

yellow _salon_, there came a murmur of feverish, distracted words, ardent

entreaties, fierce panting, a rustling and a shuffling of footsteps. And

suddenly Pierre no longer hesitated, urged on despite himself by the

conviction that the sounds he heard were those of a struggle, and that

some one was hard pressed.

And when he darted into the further room he was stupefied, for Dario was

there, no longer showing the degenerate elegance of the last scion of an

exhausted race, but maddened by the hot, frantic blood of the Boccaneras

which had bubbled up within him. He had clasped Benedetta by the

shoulders in a frenzy of passion and was scorching her face with his hot,

entreating words: “But since you say, my darling, that it is all over,

that your marriage will never be dissolved--oh! why should we be wretched

for ever! Love me as you do love me, and let me love you--let me love

you!”

But the Contessina, with an indescribable expression of tenderness and

suffering on her tearful face, repulsed him with her outstretched arms,

she likewise evincing a fierce energy as she repeated: “No, no; I love

you, but it must not, it must not be.”

At that moment, amidst the roar of his despair, Dario became conscious

that some one was entering the room. He turned and gazed at Pierre with

an expression of stupefied insanity, scarce able even to recognise him.

Then he carried his two hands to his face, to his bloodshot eyes and his

cheeks wet with scalding tears, and fled, heaving a terrible,

pain-fraught sigh in which baffled passion mingled with grief and

repentance.

Benedetta seated herself, breathing hard, her strength and courage

wellnigh exhausted. But as Pierre, too much embarrassed to speak, turned

towards the door, she addressed him in a calmer voice: “No, no, Monsieur

l’Abbe, do not go away--sit down, I pray you; I should like to speak to

you for a moment.”

He thereupon thought it his duty to account for his sudden entrance, and

explained that he had found the door of the first _salon_ ajar, and that

Victorine was not in the ante-room, though he had seen her work lying on

the table there.

“Yes,” exclaimed the Contessina, “Victorine ought to have been there; I

saw her there but a short time ago. And when my poor Dario lost his head

I called her. Why did she not come?” Then, with sudden expansion, leaning

towards Pierre, she continued: “Listen, Monsieur l’Abbe, I will tell you

what happened, for I don’t want you to form too bad an opinion of my poor

Dario. It was all in some measure my fault. Last night he asked me for an

appointment here in order that we might have a quiet chat, and as I knew

that my aunt would be absent at this time to-day I told him to come. It

was only natural--wasn’t it?--that we should want to see one another and

come to an agreement after the grievous news that my marriage will

probably never be annulled. We suffer too much, and must form a decision.

And so when he came this evening we began to weep and embrace, mingling

our tears together. I kissed him again and again, telling him how I

adored him, how bitterly grieved I was at being the cause of his

sufferings, and how surely I should die of grief at seeing him so

unhappy. Ah! no doubt I did wrong; I ought not to have caught him to my

heart and embraced him as I did, for it maddened him, Monsieur l’Abbe; he

lost his head, and would have made me break my vow to the Blessed

Virgin.”

She spoke these words in all tranquillity and simplicity, without sign of

embarrassment, like a young and beautiful woman who is at once sensible

and practical. Then she resumed: “Oh! I know my poor Dario well, but it

does not prevent me from loving him; perhaps, indeed, it only makes me

love him the more. He looks delicate, perhaps rather sickly, but in truth

he is a man of passion. Yes, the old blood of my people bubbles up in

him. I know something of it myself, for when I was a child I sometimes

had fits of angry passion which left me exhausted on the floor, and even

now, when the gusts arise within me, I have to fight against myself and

torture myself in order that I may not act madly. But my poor Dario does

not know how to suffer. He is like a child whose fancies must be

gratified. And yet at bottom he has a good deal of common sense; he waits

for me because he knows that the only real happiness lies with the woman

who adores him.”

As Pierre listened he was able to form a more precise idea of the young

prince, of whose character he had hitherto had but a vague perception.

Whilst dying of love for his cousin, Dario had ever been a man of

pleasure. Though he was no doubt very amiable, the basis of his

temperament was none the less egotism. And, in particular, he was unable

to endure suffering; he loathed suffering, ugliness, and poverty, whether

they affected himself or others. Both his flesh and his soul required

gaiety, brilliancy, show, life in the full sunlight. And withal he was

exhausted, with no strength left him but for the idle life he led, so

incapable of thought and will that the idea of joining the new _regime_

had not even occurred to him. Yet he had all the unbounded pride of a

Roman; sagacity--a keen, practical perception of the real--was mingled

with his indolence; while his inveterate love of woman, more frequently

displayed in charm of manner, burst forth at times in attacks of frantic

sensuality.

“After all he is a man,” concluded Benedetta in a low voice, “and I must

not ask impossibilities of him.” Then, as Pierre gazed at her, his

notions of Italian jealousy quite upset, she exclaimed, aglow with

passionate adoration: “No, no. Situated as we are, I am not jealous. I

know very well that he will always return to me, and that he will be mine

alone whenever I please, whenever it may be possible.”

Silence followed; shadows were filling the room, the gilding of the large

pier tables faded away, and infinite melancholy fell from the lofty, dim

ceiling and the old hangings, yellow like autumn leaves. But soon, by

some chance play of the waning light, a painting stood out above the sofa

on which the Contessina was seated. It was the portrait of the beautiful

young girl with the turban--Cassia Boccanera the forerunner, the

_amorosa_ and avengeress. Again was Pierre struck by the portrait’s

resemblance to Benedetta, and, thinking aloud, he resumed: “Passion

always proves the stronger; there invariably comes a moment when one

succumbs--”

But Benedetta violently interrupted him: “I! I! Ah! you do not know me; I

would rather die!” And with extraordinary exaltation, all aglow with

love, as if her superstitious faith had fired her passion to ecstasy, she

continued: “I have vowed to the Madonna that I will belong to none but

the man I love, and to him only when he is my husband. And hitherto I

have kept that vow, at the cost of my happiness, and I will keep it

still, even if it cost me my life! Yes, we will die, my poor Dario and I,

if it be necessary; but the holy Virgin has my vow, and the angels shall

not weep in heaven!”

She was all in those words, her nature all simplicity, intricate,

inexplicable though it might seem. She was doubtless swayed by that idea

of human nobility which Christianity has set in renunciation and purity;

a protest, as it were, against eternal matter, against the forces of

Nature, the everlasting fruitfulness of life. But there was more than

this; she reserved herself, like a divine and priceless gift, to be

bestowed on the one being whom her heart had chosen, he who would be her

lord and master when God should have united them in marriage. For her

everything lay in the blessing of the priest, in the religious

solemnisation of matrimony. And thus one understood her long resistance

to Prada, whom she did not love, and her despairing, grievous resistance

to Dario, whom she did love, but who was not her husband. And how

torturing it was for that soul of fire to have to resist her love; how

continual was the combat waged by duty in the Virgin’s name against the

wild, passionate blood of her race! Ignorant, indolent though she might

be, she was capable of great fidelity of heart, and, moreover, she was

not given to dreaming: love might have its immaterial charms, but she

desired it complete.

As Pierre looked at her in the dying twilight he seemed to see and

understand her for the first time. The duality of her nature appeared in

her somewhat full, fleshy lips, in her big black eyes, which suggested a

dark, tempestuous night illumined by flashes of lightning, and in the

calm, sensible expression of the rest of her gentle, infantile face. And,

withal, behind those eyes of flame, beneath that pure, candid skin, one

divined the internal tension of a superstitious, proud, and self-willed

woman, who was obstinately intent on reserving herself for her one love.

And Pierre could well understand that she should be adored, that she

should fill the life of the man she chose with passion, and that to his

own eyes she should appear like the younger sister of that lovely, tragic

Cassia who, unwilling to survive the blow that had rendered self-bestowal

impossible, had flung herself into the Tiber, dragging her brother Ercole

and the corpse of her lover Flavio with her.

However, with a gesture of kindly affection Benedetta caught hold of

Pierre’s hands. “You have been here a fortnight, Monsieur l’Abbe,” said

she, “and I have come to like you very much, for I feel you to be a

friend. If at first you do not understand us, at least pray do not judge

us too severely. Ignorant as I may be, I always strive to act for the

best, I assure you.”

Pierre was greatly touched by her affectionate graciousness, and thanked

her whilst for a moment retaining her beautiful hands in his own, for he

also was becoming much attached to her. A fresh dream was carrying him

off, that of educating her, should he have the time, or, at all events,

of not returning home before winning her soul over to his own ideas of

future charity and fraternity. Did not that adorable, unoccupied,

indolent, ignorant creature, who only knew how to defend her love,

personify the Italy of yesterday? The Italy of yesterday, so lovely and

so sleepy, instinct with a dying grace, charming one even in her

drowsiness, and retaining so much mystery in the fathomless depths of her

black, passionate eyes! And what a _role_ would be that of awakening her,

instructing her, winning her over to truth, making her the rejuvenated

Italy of to-morrow such as he had dreamt of! Even in that disastrous

marriage with Count Prada he tried to see merely a first attempt at

revival which had failed, the modern Italy of the North being over-hasty,

too brutal in its eagerness to love and transform that gentle, belated

Rome which was yet so superb and indolent. But might he not take up the

task? Had he not noticed that his book, after the astonishment of the

first perusal, had remained a source of interest and reflection with

Benedetta amidst the emptiness of her days given over to grief? What! was

it really possible that she might find some appeasement for her own

wretchedness by interesting herself in the humble, in the happiness of

the poor? Emotion already thrilled her at the idea, and he, quivering at

the thought of all the boundless love that was within her and that she

might bestow, vowed to himself that he would draw tears of pity from her

eyes.

But the night had now almost completely fallen, and Benedetta rose to ask

for a lamp. Then, as Pierre was about to take leave, she detained him for

another moment in the gloom. He could no longer see her; he only heard

her grave voice: “You will not go away with too bad an opinion of us,

will you, Monsieur l’Abbe? We love one another, Dario and I, and that is

no sin when one behaves as one ought. Ah! yes, I love him, and have loved

him for years. I was barely thirteen, he was eighteen, and we already

loved one another wildly in those big gardens of the Villa Montefiori

which are now all broken up. Ah! what days we spent there, whole

afternoons among the trees, hours in secret hiding-places, where we

kissed like little angels. When the oranges ripened their perfume

intoxicated us. And the large box-plants, ah, _Dio!_ how they enveloped

us, how their strong, acrid scent made our hearts beat! I can never smell

then nowadays without feeling faint!”

A man-servant brought in the lamp, and Pierre ascended to his room. But

when half-way up the little staircase he perceived Victorine, who started

slightly, as if she had posted herself there to watch his departure from

the _salon_. And now, as she followed him up, talking and seeking for

information, he suddenly realised what had happened. “Why did you not go

to your mistress instead of running off,” he asked, “when she called you,

while you were sewing in the ante-room?”

At first she tried to feign astonishment and reply that she had heard

nothing. But her good-natured, frank face did not know how to lie, and

she ended by confessing, with a gay, courageous air. “Well,” she said,

“it surely wasn’t for me to interfere between lovers! Besides, my poor

little Benedetta is simply torturing herself to death with those ideas of

hers. Why shouldn’t they be happy, since they love one another? Life

isn’t so amusing as some may think. And how bitterly one regrets not

having seized hold of happiness when the time for it has gone!”

Once alone in his room, Pierre suddenly staggered, quite overcome. The

great box-plants, the great box-plants with their acrid, perturbing

perfume! She, Benedetta, like himself, had quivered as she smelt them;

and he saw them once more in a vision of the pontifical gardens, the

voluptuous gardens of Rome, deserted, glowing under the August sun. And

now his whole day crystallised, assumed clear and full significance. It

spoke to him of the fruitful awakening, of the eternal protest of Nature

and life, Venus and Hercules, whom one may bury for centuries beneath the

soil, but who, nevertheless, one day arise from it, and though one may

seek to wall them up within the domineering, stubborn, immutable Vatican,

reign yet even there, and rule the whole, wide world with sovereign

power!