PART V.

XIV.

THAT evening, when Pierre emerged from the Borgo in front of the Vatican,

a sonorous stroke rang out from the clock amidst the deep silence of the

dark and sleepy district. It was only half-past eight, and being in

advance the young priest resolved to wait some twenty minutes in order to

reach the doors of the papal apartments precisely at nine, the hour fixed

for his audience.

This respite brought him some relief amidst the infinite emotion and

grief which gripped his heart. That tragic afternoon which he had spent

in the chamber of death, where Dario and Benedetta now slept the eternal

sleep in one another’s arms, had left him very weary. He was haunted by a

wild, dolorous vision of the two lovers, and involuntary sighs came from

his lips whilst tears continually moistened his eyes. He had been

altogether unable to eat that evening. Ah! how he would have liked to

hide himself and weep at his ease! His heart melted at each fresh

thought. The pitiful death of the lovers intensified the grievous feeling

with which his book was instinct, and impelled him to yet greater

compassion, a perfect anguish of charity for all who suffered in the

world. And he was so distracted by the thought of the many physical and

moral sores of Paris and of Rome, where he had beheld so much unjust and

abominable suffering, that at each step he took he feared lest he should

burst into sobs with arms upstretched towards the blackness of heaven.

In the hope of somewhat calming himself he began to walk slowly across

the Piazza of St. Peter’s, now all darkness and solitude. On arriving he

had fancied that he was losing himself in a murky sea, but by degrees his

eyes grew accustomed to the dimness. The vast expanse was only lighted by

the four candelabra at the corners of the obelisk and by infrequent lamps

skirting the buildings which run on either hand towards the Basilica.

Under the colonnade, too, other lamps threw yellow gleams across the

forest of pillars, showing up their stone trunks in fantastic fashion;

while on the piazza only the pale, ghostly obelisk was at all distinctly

visible. Pierre could scarcely perceive the dim, silent facade of St.

Peter’s; whilst of the dome he merely divined a gigantic, bluey roundness

faintly shadowed against the sky. In the obscurity he at first heard the

plashing of the fountains without being at all able to see them, but on

approaching he at last distinguished the slender phantoms of the ever

rising jets which fell again in spray. And above the vast square

stretched the vast and moonless sky of a deep velvety blue, where the

stars were large and radiant like carbuncles; Charles’s Wain, with golden

wheels and golden shaft tilted back as it were, over the roof of the

Vatican, and Orion, bedizened with the three bright stars of his belt,

showing magnificently above Rome, in the direction of the Via Giulia.

At last Pierre raised his eyes to the Vatican, but facing the piazza

there was here merely a confused jumble of walls, amidst which only two

gleams of light appeared on the floor of the papal apartments. The Court

of San Damaso was, however, lighted, for the conservatory-like glass-work

of two of its sides sparkled as with the reflection of gas lamps which

could not be seen. For a time there was not a sound or sign of movement,

but at last two persons crossed the expanse of the piazza, and then came

a third who in his turn disappeared, nothing remaining but a rhythmical

far-away echo of steps. The spot was indeed a perfect desert, there were

neither promenaders nor passers-by, nor was there even the shadow of a

prowler in the pillared forest of the colonnade, which was as empty as

the wild primeval forests of the world’s infancy. And what a solemn

desert it was, full of the silence of haughty desolation. Never had so

vast and black a presentment of slumber, so instinct with the sovereign

nobility of death, appeared to Pierre.

At ten minutes to nine he at last made up his mind and went towards the

bronze portal. Only one of the folding doors was now open at the end of

the right-hand porticus, where the increasing density of the gloom

steeped everything in night. Pierre remembered the instructions which

Monsignor Nani had given him; at each door that he reached he was to ask

for Signor Squadra without adding a word, and thereupon each door would

open and he would have nothing to do but to let himself be guided on. No

one but the prelate now knew that he was there, since Benedetta, the only

being to whom he had confided the secret, was dead. When he had crossed

the threshold of the bronze doors and found himself in presence of the

motionless, sleeping Swiss Guard, who was on duty there, he simply spoke

the words agreed upon: “Signor Squadra.” And as the Guard did not stir,

did not seek to bar his way, he passed on, turning into the vestibule of

the Scala Pia, the stone stairway which ascends to the Court of San

Damaso. And not a soul was to be seen: there was but the faint sound of

his own light footsteps and the sleepy glow of the gas jets whose light

was softly whitened by globes of frosted glass. Up above, on reaching the

courtyard he found it a solitude, whose slumber seemed sepulchral amidst

the mournful gleams of the gas lamps which cast a pallid reflection on

the lofty glass-work of the facades. And feeling somewhat nervous,

affected by the quiver which pervaded all that void and silence, Pierre

hastened on, turning to the right, towards the low flight of steps which

leads to the staircase of the Pope’s private apartments.

Here stood a superb gendarme in full uniform. “Signor Squadra,” said

Pierre, and without a word the gendarme pointed to the stairs.

The young man went up. It was a broad stairway, with low steps,

balustrade of white marble, and walls covered with yellowish stucco. The

gas, burning in globes of round glass, seemed to have been already turned

down in a spirit of prudent economy. And in the glimmering light nothing

could have been more mournfully solemn than that cold and pallid

staircase. On each landing there was a Swiss Guard, halbard in hand, and

in the heavy slumber spreading through the palace one only heard the

regular monotonous footsteps of these men, ever marching up and down, in

order no doubt that they might not succumb to the benumbing influence of

their surroundings.

Amidst the invading dimness and the quivering silence the ascent of the

stairs seemed interminable to Pierre, who by the time he reached the

second-floor landing imagined that he had been climbing for ages. There,

outside the glass door of the Sala Clementina, only the right-hand half

of which was open, a last Swiss Guard stood watching.

“Signor Squadra,” Pierre said again, and the Guard drew back to let him

pass.

The Sala Clementina, spacious enough by daylight, seemed immense at that

nocturnal hour, in the twilight glimmer of its lamps. All the opulent

decorative-work, sculpture, painting, and gilding became blended, the

walls assuming a tawny vagueness amidst which appeared bright patches

like the sparkle of precious stones. There was not an article of

furniture, nothing but the endless pavement stretching away into the

semi-darkness. At last, however, near a door at the far end Pierre espied

some men dozing on a bench. They were three Swiss Guards. “Signor

Squadra,” he said to them.

One of the Guards thereupon slowly rose and left the hall, and Pierre

understood that he was to wait. He did not dare to move, disturbed as he

was by the sound of his own footsteps on the paved floor, so he contented

himself with gazing around and picturing the crowds which at times

peopled that vast apartment, the first of the many papal ante-chambers.

But before long the Guard returned, and behind him, on the threshold of

the adjoining room, appeared a man of forty or thereabouts, who was clad

in black from head to foot and suggested a cross between a butler and a

beadle. He had a good-looking, clean-shaven face, with somewhat

pronounced nose and large, clear, fixed eyes. “Signor Squadra,” said

Pierre for the last time.

The man bowed as if to say that he was Signor Squadra, and then, with a

fresh reverence, he invited the priest to follow him. Thereupon at a

leisurely step, one behind the other, they began to thread the

interminable suite of waiting-rooms. Pierre, who was acquainted with the

ceremonial, of which he had often spoken with Narcisse, recognised the

different apartments as he passed through them, recalling their names and

purpose, and peopling them in imagination with the various officials of

the papal retinue who have the right to occupy them. These according to

their rank cannot go beyond certain doors, so that the persons who are to

have audience of the Pope are passed on from the servants to the Noble

Guards, from the Noble Guards to the honorary _Camerieri_, and from the

latter to the _Camerieri segreti_, until they at last reach the presence

of the Holy Father. At eight o’clock, however, the ante-rooms empty and

become both deserted and dim, only a few lamps being left alight upon the

pier tables standing here and there against the walls.

And first Pierre came to the ante-room of the _bussolanti_, mere ushers

clad in red velvet broidered with the papal arms, who conduct visitors to

the door of the ante-room of honour. At that late hour only one of them

was left there, seated on a bench in such a dark corner that his purple

tunic looked quite black. Then the Hall of the Gendarmes was crossed,

where according to the regulations the secretaries of cardinals and other

high personages await their masters’ return; and this was now completely

empty, void both of the handsome blue uniforms with white shoulder belts

and the cassocks of fine black cloth which mingled in it during the

brilliant reception hours. Empty also was the following room, a smaller

one reserved to the Palatine Guards, who are recruited among the Roman

middle class and wear black tunics with gold epaulets and shakoes

surmounted by red plumes. Then Pierre and his guide turned into another

series of apartments, and again was the first one empty. This was the

Hall of the Arras, a superb waiting-room with lofty painted ceiling and

admirable Gobelins tapestry designed by Audran and representing the

miracles of Jesus. And empty also was the ante-chamber of the Noble

Guards which followed, with its wooden stools, its pier table on the

right-hand surmounted by a large crucifix standing between two lamps, and

its large door opening at the far end into another but smaller room, a

sort of alcove indeed, where there is an altar at which the Holy Father

says mass by himself whilst those privileged to be present remain

kneeling on the marble slabs of the outer apartment which is resplendent

with the dazzling uniforms of the Guards. And empty likewise was the

ensuing ante-room of honour, otherwise the grand throne-room, where the

Pope receives two or three hundred people at a time in public audience.

The throne, an arm-chair of elaborate pattern, gilded, and upholstered

with red velvet, stands under a velvet canopy of the same hue, in front

of the windows. Beside it is the cushion on which the Pope rests his foot

in order that it may be kissed. Then facing one another, right and left

of the room, there are two pier tables, on one of which is a clock and on

the other a crucifix between lofty candelabra with feet of gilded wood.

The wall hangings, of red silk damask with a Louis XIV palm pattern, are

topped by a pompous frieze, framing a ceiling decorated with allegorical

figures and attributes, and it is only just in front of the throne that a

Smyrna carpet covers the magnificent marble pavement. On the days of

private audience, when the Pope remains in the little throne-room or at

times in his bed-chamber, the grand throne-room becomes simply the

ante-room of honour, where high dignitaries of the Church, ambassadors,

and great civilian personages, wait their turns. Two _Camerieri_, one in

violet coat, the other of the Cape and the Sword, here do duty, receiving

from the _bussolanti_ the persons who are to be honoured with audiences

and conducting them to the door of the next room, the secret or private

ante-chamber, where they hand them over to the _Camerieri segreti_.

Signor Squadra who, walking on with slow and silent steps, had not yet

once turned round, paused for a moment on reaching the door of the

_anticamera segreta_ so as to give Pierre time to breathe and recover

himself somewhat before crossing the threshold of the sanctuary. The

_Camerieri segreti_ alone had the right to occupy that last ante-chamber,

and none but the cardinals might wait there till the Pope should

condescend to receive them. And so when Signor Squadra made up his mind

to admit Pierre, the latter could not restrain a slight nervous shiver as

if he were passing into some redoubtable mysterious sphere beyond the

limits of the lower world. In the daytime a Noble Guard stood on sentry

duty before the door, but the latter was now free of access, and the room

within proved as empty as all the others. It was rather narrow, almost

like a passage, with two windows overlooking the new district of the

castle fields and a third one facing the Piazza of St. Peter’s. Near the

last was a door conducting to the little throne-room, and between this

door and the window stood a small table at which a secretary, now absent,

usually sat. And here again, as in all the other rooms, one found a

gilded pier table surmounted by a crucifix flanked by a pair of lamps. In

a corner too there was a large clock, loudly ticking in its ebony case

incrusted with brass-work. Still there was nothing to awaken curiosity

under the panelled and gilded ceiling unless it were the wall-hangings of

red damask, on which yellow scutcheons displaying the Keys and the Tiara

alternated with armorial lions, each with a paw resting on a globe.

Signor Squadra, however, now noticed that Pierre still carried his hat in

his hand, whereas according to etiquette he should have left it in the

hall of the _bussolanti_, only cardinals being privileged to carry their

hats with them into the Pope’s presence. Accordingly he discreetly took

the young priest’s from him, and deposited it on the pier table to

indicate that it must at least remain there. Then, without a word, by a

simple bow he gave Pierre to understand that he was about to announce him

to his Holiness, and that he must be good enough to wait for a few

minutes in that room.

On being left to himself Pierre drew a long breath. He was stifling; his

heart was beating as though it would burst. Nevertheless his mind

remained clear, and in spite of the semi-obscurity he had been able to

form some idea of the famous and magnificent apartments of the Pope, a

suite of splendid _salons_ with tapestried or silken walls, gilded or

painted friezes, and frescoed ceilings. By way of furniture, however,

there were only pier table, stools,* and thrones. And the lamps and the

clocks, and the crucifixes, even the thrones, were all presents brought

from the four quarters of the world in the great fervent days of jubilee.

There was no sign of comfort, everything was pompous, stiff, cold, and

inconvenient. All olden Italy was there, with its perpetual display and

lack of intimate, cosy life. It had been necessary to lay a few carpets

over the superb marble slabs which froze one’s feet; and some

_caloriferes_ had even lately been installed, but it was not thought

prudent to light them lest the variations of temperature should give the

Pope a cold. However, that which more particularly struck Pierre now that

he stood there waiting was the extraordinary silence which prevailed all

around, silence so deep that it seemed as if all the dark quiescence of

that huge, somniferous Vatican were concentrated in that one suite of

lifeless, sumptuous rooms, which the motionless flamelets of the lamps as

dimly illumined.

* M. Zola seems to have fallen into error here. Many of the seats,

which are of peculiar antique design, do, in the lower part,

resemble stools, but they have backs, whereas a stool proper has

none. Briefly, these seats, which are entirely of wood, are not

unlike certain old-fashioned hall chairs.--Trans.

All at once the ebony clock struck nine and the young man felt

astonished. What! had only ten minutes elapsed since he had crossed the

threshold of the bronze doors below? He felt as if he had been walking on

for days and days. Then, desiring to overcome the nervous feeling which

oppressed him--for he ever feared lest his enforced calmness should

collapse amidst a flood of tears--he began to walk up and down, passing

in front of the clock, glancing at the crucifix on the pier table, and

the globe of the lamp on which had remained the mark of a servant’s

greasy fingers. And the light was so faint and yellow that he felt

inclined to turn the lamp up, but did not dare. Then he found himself

with his brow resting against one of the panes of the window facing the

Piazza of St. Peter’s, and for a moment he was thunderstruck, for between

the imperfectly closed shutters he could see all Rome, as he had seen it

one day from the _loggie_ of Raffaelle, and as he had pictured Leo XIII

contemplating it from the window of his bed-room. However, it was now

Rome by night, Rome spreading out into the depths of the gloom, as

limitless as the starry sky. And in that sea of black waves one could

only with certainty identify the larger thoroughfares which the white

brightness of electric lights turned, as it were, into Milky Ways. All

the rest showed but a swarming of little yellow sparks, the crumbs, as it

were, of a half-extinguished heaven swept down upon the earth. Occasional

constellations of bright stars, tracing mysterious figures, vainly

endeavoured to show forth distinctly, but they were submerged, blotted

out by the general chaos which suggested the dust of some old planet that

had crumbled there, losing its splendour and reduced to mere

phosphorescent sand. And how immense was the blackness thus sprinkled

with light, how huge the mass of obscurity and mystery into which the

Eternal City with its seven and twenty centuries, its ruins, its

monuments, its people, its history seemed to have been merged. You could

no longer tell where it began or where it ended, whether it spread to the

farthest recesses of the gloom, or whether it were so reduced that the

sun on rising would illumine but a little pile of ashes.

However, in spite of all Pierre’s efforts, his nervous anguish increased

each moment, even in presence of that ocean of darkness which displayed

such sovereign quiescence. He drew away from the window and quivered from

head to foot on hearing a faint footfall and thinking it was that of

Signor Squadra approaching to fetch him. The sound came from an adjacent

apartment, the little throne-room, whose door, he now perceived, had

remained ajar. And at last, as he heard nothing further, he yielded to

his feverish impatience and peeped into this room which he found to be

fairly spacious, again hung with red damask, and containing a gilded

arm-chair, covered with red velvet under a canopy of the same material.

And again there was the inevitable pier table, with a tall ivory

crucifix, a clock, a pair of lamps, a pair of candelabra, a pair of large

vases on pedestals, and two smaller ones of Sevres manufacture decorated

with the Holy Father’s portrait. At the same time, however, the room

displayed rather more comfort, for a Smyrna carpet covered the whole of

the marble floor, while a few arm-chairs stood against the walls, and an

imitation chimney-piece, draped with damask, served as counterpart to the

pier table. As a rule the Pope, whose bed-chamber communicated with this

little throne-room, received in the latter such persons as he desired to

honour. And Pierre’s shiver became more pronounced at the idea that in

all likelihood he would merely have the throne-room to cross and that Leo

XIII was yonder behind its farther door. Why was he kept waiting, he

wondered? He had been told of mysterious audiences granted at a similar

hour to personages who had been received in similar silent fashion, great

personages whose names were only mentioned in the lowest whispers. With

regard to himself no doubt, it was because he was considered compromising

that there was a desire to receive him in this manner unknown to the

personages of the Court, and so as to speak with him at ease. Then, all

at once, he understood the cause of the noise he had recently heard, for

beside the lamp on the pier table of the little throne-room he saw a kind

of butler’s tray containing some soiled plates, knives, forks, and

spoons, with a bottle and a glass, which had evidently just been removed

from a supper table. And he realised that Signor Squadra, having seen

these things in the Pope’s room, had brought them there, and had then

gone in again, perhaps to tidy up. He knew also of the Pope’s frugality,

how he took his meals all alone at a little round table, everything being

brought to him in that tray, a plate of meat, a plate of vegetables, a

little Bordeaux claret as prescribed by his doctor, and a large allowance

of beef broth of which he was very fond. In the same way as others might

offer a cup of tea, he was wont to offer cups of broth to the old

cardinals his friends and favourites, quite an invigorating little treat

which these old bachelors much enjoyed. And, O ye orgies of Alexander VI,

ye banquets and _galas_ of Julius II and Leo X, only eight _lire_ a

day--six shillings and fourpence--were allowed to defray the cost of Leo

XIII’s table! However, just as that recollection occurred to Pierre, he

again heard a slight noise, this time in his Holiness’s bed-chamber, and

thereupon, terrified by his indiscretion, he hastened to withdraw from

the entrance of the throne-room which, lifeless and quiescent though it

was, seemed in his agitation to flare as with sudden fire.

Then, quivering too violently to be able to remain still, he began to

walk up and down the ante-chamber. He remembered that Narcisse had spoken

to him of that Signor Squadra, his Holiness’s cherished valet, whose

importance and influence were so great. He alone, on reception days, was

able to prevail on the Pope to don a clean cassock if the one he was

wearing happened to be soiled by snuff. And though his Holiness

stubbornly shut himself up alone in his bed-room every night from a

spirit of independence, which some called the anxiety of a miser

determined to sleep alone with his treasure, Signor Squadra at all events

occupied an adjoining chamber, and was ever on the watch, ready to

respond to the faintest call. Again, it was he who respectfully

intervened whenever his Holiness sat up too late or worked too long. But

on this point it was difficult to induce the Pope to listen to reason.

During his hours of insomnia he would often rise and send Squadra to

fetch a secretary in order that he might detail some memoranda or sketch

out an encyclical letter. When the drafting of one of the latter

impassioned him he would have spent days and nights over it, just as

formerly, when claiming proficiency in Latin verse, he had often let the

dawn surprise him whilst he was polishing a line. But, indeed, he slept

very little, his brain ever being at work, ever scheming out the

realisation of some former ideas. His memory alone seemed to have

slightly weakened during recent times.

Pierre, as he slowly paced to and fro, gradually became absorbed in his

thoughts of that lofty and sovereign personality. From the petty details

of the Pope’s daily existence, he passed to his intellectual life, to the

_role_ which he was certainly bent on playing as a great pontiff. And

Pierre asked himself which of his two hundred and fifty-seven

predecessors, the long line of saints and criminals, men of mediocrity

and men of genius, he most desired to resemble. Was it one of the first

humble popes, those who followed on during the first three centuries,

mere heads of burial guilds, fraternal pastors of the Christian

community? Was it Pope Damasus, the first great builder, the man of

letters who took delight in intellectual matters, the ardent believer who

is said to have opened the Catacombs to the piety of the faithful? Was it

Leo III, who by crowning Charlemagne boldly consummated the rupture with

the schismatic East and conveyed the Empire to the West by the

all-powerful will of God and His Church, which thenceforth disposed of

the crowns of monarchs? Was it the terrible Gregory VII, the purifier of

the temple, the sovereign of kings; was it Innocent III or Boniface VIII,

those masters of souls, nations, and thrones, who, armed with the fierce

weapon of excommunication, reigned with such despotism over the terrified

middle ages that Catholicism was never nearer the attainment of its dream

of universal dominion? Was it Urban II or Gregory IX or another of those

popes in whom flared the red Crusading passion which urged the nations on

to the conquest of the unknown and the divine? Was it Alexander III, who

defended the Holy See against the Empire, and at last conquered and set

his foot on the neck of Frederick Barbarossa? Was it, long after the

sorrows of Avignon, Julius II, who wore the cuirass and once more

strengthened the political power of the papacy? Was it Leo X, the

pompous, glorious patron of the Renascence, of a whole great century of

art, whose mind, however, was possessed of so little penetration and

foresight that he looked on Luther as a mere rebellious monk? Was it Pius

V, who personified dark and avenging reaction, the fire of the stakes

that punished the heretic world? Was it some other of the popes who

reigned after the Council of Trent with faith absolute, belief

re-established in its full integrity, the Church saved by pride and the

stubborn upholding of every dogma? Or was it a pope of the decline, such

as Benedict XIV, the man of vast intelligence, the learned theologian

who, as his hands were tied, and he could not dispose of the kingdoms of

the world, spent a worthy life in regulating the affairs of heaven?

In this wise, in Pierre’s mind there spread out the whole history of the

popes, the most prodigious of all histories, showing fortune in every

guise, the lowest, the most wretched, as well as the loftiest and most

dazzling; whilst an obstinate determination to live enabled the papacy to

survive everything--conflagrations, massacres, and the downfall of many

nations, for always did it remain militant and erect in the persons of

its popes, that most extraordinary of all lines of absolute, conquering,

and domineering sovereigns, every one of them--even the puny and

humble--masters of the world, every one of them glorious with the

imperishable glory of heaven when they were thus evoked in that ancient

Vatican, where their spirits assuredly awoke at night and prowled about

the endless galleries and spreading halls in that tomb-like silence whose

quiver came no doubt from the light touch of their gliding steps over the

marble slabs.

However, Pierre was now thinking that he indeed knew which of the great

popes Leo XIII most desired to resemble. It was first Gregory the Great,

the conqueror and organiser of the early days of Catholic power. He had

come of ancient Roman stock, and in his heart there was a little of the

blood of the emperors. He administered Rome after it had been saved from

the Goths, cultivated the ecclesiastical domains, and divided earthly

wealth into thirds, one for the poor, one for the clergy, and one for the

Church. Then too he was the first to establish the Propaganda, sending

his priests forth to civilise and pacify the nations, and carrying his

conquests so far as to win Great Britain over to the divine law of

Christ. And the second pope whom Leo XIII took as model was one who had

arisen after a long lapse of centuries, Sixtus V, the pope financier and

politician, the vine-dresser’s son, who, when he had donned the tiara,

revealed one of the most extensive and supple minds of a period fertile

in great diplomatists. He heaped up treasure and displayed stern avarice,

in order that he might ever have in his coffers all the money needful for

war or for peace. He spent years and years in negotiations with kings,

never despairing of his own triumph; and never did he display open

hostility for his times, but took them as they were and then sought to

modify them in accordance with the interests of the Holy See, showing

himself conciliatory in all things and with every one, already dreaming

of an European balance of power which he hoped to control. And withal a

very saintly pope, a fervent mystic, yet a pope of the most absolute and

domineering mind blended with a politician ready for whatever courses

might most conduce to the rule of God’s Church on earth.

And, after all, Pierre amidst his rising enthusiasm, which despite his

efforts at calmness was sweeping away all prudence and doubt, Pierre

asked himself why he need question the past. Was not Leo XIII the pope

whom he had depicted in his book, the great pontiff, who was desired and

expected? No doubt the portrait which he had sketched was not accurate in

every detail, but surely its main lines must be correct if mankind were

to retain a hope of salvation. Whole pages of that book of his arose

before him, and he again beheld the Leo XIII that he had portrayed, the

wise and conciliatory politician, labouring for the unity of the Church

and so anxious to make it strong and invincible against the day of the

inevitable great struggle. He again beheld him freed from the cares of

the temporal power, elevated, radiant with moral splendour, the only

authority left erect above the nations; he beheld him realising what

mortal danger would be incurred if the solution of the social question

were left to the enemies of Christianity, and therefore resolving to

intervene in contemporary quarrels for the defence of the poor and the

lowly, even as Jesus had intervened once before. And he again beheld him

putting himself on the side of the democracies, accepting the Republic in

France, leaving the dethroned kings in exile, and verifying the

prediction which promised the empire of the world to Rome once more when

the papacy should have unified belief and have placed itself at the head

of the people. The times indeed were near accomplishment, Caesar was

struck down, the Pope alone remained, and would not the people, the great

silent multitude, for whom the two powers had so long contended, give

itself to its Father now that it knew him to be both just and charitable,

with heart aglow and hand outstretched to welcome all the penniless

toilers and beggars of the roads! Given the catastrophe which threatened

our rotten modern societies, the frightful misery which ravaged every

city, there was surely no other solution possible: Leo XIII, the

predestined, necessary redeemer, the pastor sent to save the flock from

coming disaster by re-establishing the true Christian community, the

forgotten golden age of primitive Christianity. The reign of justice

would at last begin, all men would be reconciled, there would be but one

nation living in peace and obeying the equalising law of work, under the

high patronage of the Pope, sole bond of charity and love on earth!

And at this thought Pierre was upbuoyed by fiery enthusiasm. At last he

was about to see the Holy Father, empty his heart and open his soul to

him! He had so long and so passionately looked for the advent of that

moment! To secure it he had fought with all his courage through ever

recurring obstacles, and the length and difficulty of the struggle and

the success now at last achieved, increased his feverishness, his desire

for final victory. Yes, yes, he would conquer, he would confound his

enemies. As he had said to Monsignor Fornaro, could the Pope disavow him?

Had he not expressed the Holy Father’s secret ideas? Perhaps he might

have done so somewhat prematurely, but was not that a fault to be

forgiven? And then too, he remembered his declaration to Monsignor Nani,

that he himself would never withdraw and suppress his book, for he

neither regretted nor disowned anything that was in it. At this very

moment he again questioned himself, and felt that all his valour and

determination to defend his book, all his desire to work the triumph of

his belief, remained intact. Yet his mental perturbation was becoming

great, he had to seek for ideas, wondering how he should enter the Pope’s

presence, what he should say, what precise terms he should employ.

Something heavy and mysterious which he could hardly account for seemed

to weigh him down. At bottom he was weary, already exhausted, only held

up by his dream, his compassion for human misery. However, he would enter

in all haste, he would fall upon his knees and speak as he best could,

letting his heart flow forth. And assuredly the Holy Father would smile

on him, and dismiss him with a promise that he would not sign the

condemnation of a work in which he had found the expression of his own

most cherished thoughts.

Then, again, such an acute sensation as of fainting came over Pierre that

he went up to the window to press his burning brow against the cold

glass. His ears were buzzing, his legs staggering, whilst his brain

throbbed violently. And he was striving to forget his thoughts by gazing

upon the black immensity of Rome, longing to be steeped in night himself,

total, healing night, the night in which one sleeps on for ever, knowing

neither pain nor wretchedness, when all at once he became conscious that

somebody was standing behind him; and thereupon, with a start, he turned

round.

And there, indeed, stood Signor Squadra in his black livery. Again he

made one of his customary bows to invite the visitor to follow him, and

again he walked on in front, crossing the little throne-room, and slowly

opening the farther door. Then he drew aside, allowed Pierre to enter,

and noiselessly closed the door behind him.

Pierre was in his Holiness’s bed-room. He had feared one of those

overwhelming attacks of emotion which madden or paralyse one. He had been

told of women reaching the Pope’s presence in a fainting condition,

staggering as if intoxicated, while others came with a rush, as though

upheld and borne along by invisible pinions. And suddenly the anguish of

his own spell of waiting, his intense feverishness, ceased in a sort of

astonishment, a reaction which rendered him very calm and so restored his

clearness of vision, that he could see everything. As he entered he

distinctly realised the decisive importance of such an audience, he, a

mere petty priest in presence of the Supreme Pontiff, the Head of the

Church. All his religious and moral life would depend on it; and possibly

it was this sudden thought that thus chilled him on the threshold of the

redoubtable sanctuary, which he had approached with such quivering steps,

and which he would not have thought to enter otherwise than with

distracted heart and loss of senses, unable to do more than stammer the

simple prayers of childhood.

Later on, when he sought to classify his recollections he remembered that

his eyes had first lighted on Leo XIII, not, however, to the exclusion of

his surroundings, but in conjunction with them, that spacious room hung

with yellow damask whose alcove, adorned with fluted marble columns, was

so deep that the bed was quite hidden away in it, as well as other

articles of furniture, a couch, a wardrobe, and some trunks, those famous

trunks in which the treasure of the Peter’s Pence was said to be securely

locked. A sort of Louis XIV writing-desk with ornaments of engraved brass

stood face to face with a large gilded and painted Louis XV pier table on

which a lamp was burning beside a lofty crucifix. The room was virtually

bare, only three arm-chairs and four or five other chairs, upholstered in

light silk, being disposed here and there over the well-worn carpet. And

on one of the arm-chairs sat Leo XIII, near a small table on which

another lamp with a shade had been placed. Three newspapers, moreover,

lay there, two of them French and one Italian, and the last was half

unfolded as if the Pope had momentarily turned from it to stir a glass of

syrup, standing beside him, with a long silver-gilt spoon.

In the same way as Pierre saw the Pope’s room, he saw his costume, his

cassock of white cloth with white buttons, his white skull-cap, his white

cape and his white sash fringed with gold and broidered at either end

with golden keys. His stockings were white, his slippers were of red

velvet, and these again were broidered with golden keys. What surprised

the young priest, however, was his Holiness’s face and figure, which now

seemed so shrunken that he scarcely recognised them. This was his fourth

meeting with the Pope. He had seen him walking in the Vatican gardens,

enthroned in the Hall of Beatifications, and pontifying at St. Peter’s,

and now he beheld him on that arm-chair, in privacy, and looking so

slight and fragile that he could not restrain a feeling of affectionate

anxiety. Leo’s neck was particularly remarkable, slender beyond belief,

suggesting the neck of some little, aged, white bird. And his face, of

the pallor of alabaster, was characteristically transparent, to such a

degree, indeed, that one could see the lamplight through his large

commanding nose, as if the blood had entirely withdrawn from that organ.

A mouth of great length, with white bloodless lips, streaked the lower

part of the papal countenance, and the eyes alone had remained young and

handsome. Superb eyes they were, brilliant like black diamonds, endowed

with sufficient penetration and strength to lay souls open and force them

to confess the truth aloud. Some scanty white curls emerged from under

the white skull-cap, thus whitely crowning the thin white face, whose

ugliness was softened by all this whiteness, this spiritual whiteness in

which Leo XIII’s flesh seemed as it were but pure lily-white florescence.

At the first glance, however, Pierre noticed that if Signor Squadra had

kept him waiting, it had not been in order to compel the Holy Father to

don a clean cassock, for the one he was wearing was badly soiled by

snuff. A number of brown stains had trickled down the front of the

garment beside the buttons, and just like any good _bourgeois_, his

Holiness had a handkerchief on his knees to wipe himself. Apart from all

this he seemed in good health, having recovered from his recent

indisposition as easily as he usually recovered from such passing

illnesses, sober, prudent old man that he was, quite free from organic

disease, and simply declining by reason of progressive natural

exhaustion.

Immediately on entering Pierre had felt that the Pope’s sparkling eyes,

those two black diamonds, were fixed upon him. The silence was profound,

and the lamps burned with motionless, pallid flames. He had to approach,

and after making the three genuflections prescribed by etiquette, he

stooped over one of the Pope’s feet resting on a cushion in order to kiss

the red velvet slipper. And on the Pope’s side there was not a word, not

a gesture, not a movement. When the young man drew himself up again he

found the two black diamonds, those two eyes which were all brightness

and intelligence, still riveted on him.

But at last Leo XIII, who had been unwilling to spare the young priest

the humble duty of kissing his foot and who now left him standing, began

to speak, whilst still examining him, probing, as it were, his very soul.

“My son,” he said, “you greatly desired to see me, and I consented to

afford you that satisfaction.”

He spoke in French, somewhat uncertain French, pronounced after the

Italian fashion, and so slowly did he articulate each sentence that one

could have written it down like so much dictation. And his voice, as

Pierre had previously noticed, was strong and nasal, one of those full

voices which people are surprised to hear coming from debile and

apparently bloodless and breathless frames.

In response to the Holy Father’s remark Pierre contented himself with

bowing, knowing that respect required him to wait for a direct answer

before speaking. However, this question promptly came. “You live in

Paris?” asked Leo XIII.

“Yes, Holy Father.”

“Are you attached to one of the great parishes of the city?”

“No, Holy Father. I simply officiate at the little church of Neuilly.”

“Ah, yes, Neuilly, that is in the direction of the Bois de Boulogne, is

it not? And how old are you, my son?”

“Thirty-four, Holy Father.”

A short interval followed. Leo XIII had at last lowered his eyes. With

frail, ivory hand he took up the glass beside him, again stirred the

syrup with the long spoon, and then drank a little of it. And all this he

did gently and slowly, with a prudent, judicious air, as was his wont no

doubt in everything. “I have read your book, my son,” he resumed. “Yes,

the greater part of it. As a rule only fragments are submitted to me. But

a person who is interested in you handed me the volume, begging me to

glance through it. And that is how I was able to look into it.”

As he spoke he made a slight gesture in which Pierre fancied he could

detect a protest against the isolation in which he was kept by those

surrounding him, who, as Monsignor Nani had said, maintained a strict

watch in order that nothing they objected to might reach him. And

thereupon the young priest ventured to say: “I thank your Holiness for

having done me so much honour. No greater or more desired happiness could

have befallen me.” He was indeed so happy! On seeing the Pope so calm, so

free from all signs of anger, and on hearing him speak in that way of his

book, like one well acquainted with it, he imagined that his cause was

won.

“You are in relations with Monsieur le Vicomte Philibert de la Choue, are

you not, my son?” continued Leo XIII. “I was struck by the resemblance

between some of your ideas and those of that devoted servant of the

Church, who has in other ways given us previous testimony of his good

feelings.”

“Yes, indeed, Holy Father, Monsieur de la Choue is kind enough to show me

some affection. We have often talked together, so it is not surprising

that I should have given expression to some of his most cherished ideas.”

“No doubt, no doubt. For instance, there is that question of the

working-class guilds with which he largely occupies himself--with which,

in fact, he occupies himself rather too much. At the time of his last

journey to Rome he spoke to me of it in the most pressing manner. And in

the same way, quite recently, another of your compatriots, one of the

best and worthiest of men, Monsieur le Baron de Fouras, who brought us

that superb pilgrimage of the St. Peter’s Pence Fund, never ceased his

efforts until I consented to receive him, when he spoke to me on the same

subject during nearly an hour. Only it must be said that they do not

agree in the matter, for one begs me to do things which the other will

not have me do on any account.”

Pierre realised that the conversation was straying away from his book,

but he remembered having promised the Viscount that if he should see the

Pope he would make an attempt to obtain from him a decisive expression of

opinion on the famous question as to whether the working-class guilds or

corporations should be free or obligatory, open or closed. And the

unhappy Viscount, kept in Paris by the gout, had written the young priest

letter after letter on the subject, whilst his rival the Baron, availing

himself of the opportunity offered by the international pilgrimage,

endeavoured to wring from the Pope an approval of his own views, with

which he would have returned in triumph to France. Pierre conscientiously

desired to keep his promise, and so he answered: “Your Holiness knows

better than any of us in which direction true wisdom lies. Monsieur de

Fouras is of opinion that salvation, the solution of the labour question,

lies simply in the re-establishment of the old free corporations, whilst

Monsieur de la Choue desires the corporations to be obligatory, protected

by the state and governed by new regulations. This last conception is

certainly more in agreement with the social ideas now prevalent in

France. Should your Holiness condescend to express a favourable opinion

in that sense, the young French Catholic party would certainly know how

to turn it to good result, by producing quite a movement of the working

classes in favour of the Church.”

In his quiet way Leo XIII responded: “But I cannot. Frenchmen always ask

things of me which I cannot, will not do. What I will allow you to say on

my behalf to Monsieur de la Choue is, that though I cannot content him I

have not contented Monsieur de Fouras. He obtained from me nothing beyond

the expression of my sincere good-will for the French working classes,

who are so dear to me and who can do so much for the restoration of the

faith. You must surely understand, however, that among you Frenchmen

there are questions of detail, of mere organisation, so to say, into

which I cannot possibly enter without imparting to them an importance

which they do not have, and at the same time greatly discontenting some

people should I please others.”

As the Pope pronounced these last words he smiled a pale smile, in which

the shrewd, conciliatory politician, who was determined not to allow his

infallibility to be compromised in useless and risky ventures, was fully

revealed. And then he drank a little more syrup and wiped his mouth with

his handkerchief, like a sovereign whose Court day is over and who takes

his ease, having chosen this hour of solitude and silence to chat as long

as he may be so inclined.

Pierre, however, sought to bring him back to the subject of his book.

“Monsieur de la Choue,” said he, “has shown me so much kindness and is so

anxious to know the fate reserved to my book--as if, indeed, it were his

own--that I should have been very happy to convey to him an expression of

your Holiness’s approval.”

However, the Pope continued wiping his mouth and did not reply.

“I became acquainted with the Viscount,” continued Pierre, “at the

residence of his Eminence Cardinal Bergerot, another great heart whose

ardent charity ought to suffice to restore the faith in France.”

This time the effect was immediate. “Ah! yes, Monsieur le Cardinal

Bergerot!” said Leo XIII. “I read that letter of his which is printed at

the beginning of your book. He was very badly inspired in writing it to

you; and you, my son, acted very culpably on the day you published it. I

cannot yet believe that Monsieur le Cardinal Bergerot had read some of

your pages when he sent you an expression of his complete and full

approval. I prefer to charge him with ignorance and thoughtlessness. How

could he approve of your attacks on dogma, your revolutionary theories

which tend to the complete destruction of our holy religion? If it be a

fact that he had read your book, the only excuse he can invoke is sudden

and inexplicable aberration. It is true that a very bad spirit prevails

among a small portion of the French clergy. What are called Gallican

ideas are ever sprouting up like noxious weeds; there is a malcontent

Liberalism rebellious to our authority which continually hungers for free

examination and sentimental adventures.”

The Pope grew animated as he spoke. Italian words mingled with his

hesitating French, and every now and again his full nasal voice resounded

with the sonority of a brass instrument. “Monsieur le Cardinal Bergerot,”

he continued, “must be given to understand that we shall crush him on the

day when we see in him nothing but a rebellious son. He owes the example

of obedience; we shall acquaint him with our displeasure, and we hope

that he will submit. Humility and charity are great virtues doubtless,

and we have always taken pleasure in recognising them in him. But they

must not be the refuge of a rebellious heart, for they are as nothing

unless accompanied by obedience--obedience, obedience, the finest

adornment of the great saints!”

Pierre listened thunderstruck, overcome. He forgot himself to think of

the apostle of kindliness and tolerance upon whose head he had drawn this

all-powerful anger. So Don Vigilio had spoken the truth: over and above

his--Pierre’s--head the denunciations of the Bishops of Evreux and

Poitiers were about to fall on the man who opposed their Ultramontane

policy, that worthy and gentle Cardinal Bergerot, whose heart was open to

all the woes of the lowly and the poor. This filled the young priest with

despair; he could accept the denunciation of the Bishop of Tarbes acting

on behalf of the Fathers of the Grotto, for that only fell on himself, as

a reprisal for what he had written about Lourdes; but the underhand

warfare of the others exasperated him, filled him with dolorous

indignation. And from that puny old man before him with the slender,

scraggy neck of an aged bird, he had suddenly seen such a wrathful,

formidable Master arise that he trembled. How could he have allowed

himself to be deceived by appearances on entering? How could he have

imagined that he was simply in presence of a poor old man, worn out by

age, desirous of peace, and ready for every concession? A blast had swept

through that sleepy chamber, and all his doubts and his anguish awoke

once more. Ah! that Pope, how thoroughly he answered to all the accounts

that he, Pierre, had heard but had refused to believe; so many people had

told him in Rome that he would find Leo XIII a man of intellect rather

than of sentiment, a man of the most unbounded pride, who from his very

youth had nourished the supreme ambition, to such a point indeed that he

had promised eventual triumph to his relatives in order that they might

make the necessary sacrifices for him, while since he had occupied the

pontifical throne his one will and determination had been to reign, to

reign in spite of all, to be the sole absolute and omnipotent master of

the world! And now here was reality arising with irresistible force and

confirming everything. And yet Pierre struggled, stubbornly clutching at

his dream once more.

“Oh! Holy Father,” said he, “I should be grieved indeed if his Eminence

should have a moment’s worry on account of my unfortunate book. If I be

guilty I can answer for my error, but his Eminence only obeyed the

dictates of his heart and can only have transgressed by excess of love

for the disinherited of the world!”

Leo XIII made no reply. He had again raised his superb eyes, those eyes

of ardent life, set, as it were, in the motionless countenance of an

alabaster idol; and once more he was fixedly gazing at the young priest.

And Pierre, amidst his returning feverishness, seemed to behold him

growing in power and splendour, whilst behind him arose a vision of the

ages, a vision of that long line of popes whom the young priest had

previously evoked, the saintly and the proud ones, the warriors and the

ascetics, the theologians and the diplomatists, those who had worn

armour, those who had conquered by the Cross, those who had disposed of

empires as of mere provinces which God had committed to their charge. And

in particular Pierre beheld the great Gregory, the conqueror and founder,

and Sixtus V, the negotiator and politician, who had first foreseen the

eventual victory of the papacy over all the vanquished monarchies. Ah!

what a throng of magnificent princes, of sovereign masters with powerful

brains and arms, there was behind that pale, motionless, old man! What an

accumulation of inexhaustible determination, stubborn genius, and

boundless domination! The whole history of human ambition, the whole

effort of the ages to subject the nations to the pride of one man, the

greatest force that has ever conquered, exploited, and fashioned mankind

in the name of its happiness! And even now, when territorial sovereignty

had come to an end, how great was the spiritual sovereignty of that pale

and slender old man, in whose presence women fainted, as if overcome by

the divine splendour radiating from his person. Not only did all the

resounding glories, the masterful triumphs of history spread out behind

him, but heaven opened, the very spheres beyond life shone out in their

dazzling mystery. He--the Pope--stood at the portals of heaven, holding

the keys and opening those portals to human souls; all the ancient

symbolism was revived, freed at last from the stains of royalty here

below.

“Oh! I beg you, Holy Father,” resumed Pierre, “if an example be needed

strike none other than myself. I have come, and am here; decide my fate,

but do not aggravate my punishment by filling me with remorse at having

brought condemnation on the innocent.”

Leo XIII still refrained from replying, though he continued to look at

the young priest with burning eyes. And he, Pierre, no longer beheld Leo

XIII, the last of a long line of popes, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the

Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, the Supreme Pontiff of the

Universal Church, Patriarch of the East, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and

Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the Temporal Domains of

the Holy Church; he saw the Leo XIII that he had dreamt of, the awaited

saviour who would dispel the frightful cataclysm in which rotten society

was sinking. He beheld him with his supple, lofty intelligence and

fraternal, conciliatory tactics, avoiding friction and labouring to bring

about unity whilst with his heart overflowing with love he went straight

to the hearts of the multitude, again giving the best of his blood in

sign of the new alliance. He raised him aloft as the sole remaining moral

authority, the sole possible bond of charity and peace--as the Father, in

fact, who alone could stamp out injustice among his children, destroy

misery, and re-establish the liberating Law of Work by bringing the

nations back to the faith of the primitive Church, the gentleness and the

wisdom of the true Christian community. And in the deep silence of that

room the great figure which he thus set up assumed invincible

all-powerfulness, extraordinary majesty.

“Oh, I beseech you, Holy Father, listen to me,” he said. “Do not even

strike me, strike no one, neither a being nor a thing, anything that can

suffer under the sun. Show kindness and indulgence to all, show all the

kindness and indulgence which the sight of the world’s sufferings must

have set in you!”

And then, seeing that Leo XIII still remained silent and still left him

standing there, he sank down upon his knees, as if felled by the growing

emotion which rendered his heart so heavy. And within him there was a

sort of _debacle_; all his doubts, all his anguish and sadness burst

forth in an irresistible stream. There was the memory of the frightful

day that he had just spent, the tragic death of Dario and Benedetta,

which weighed on him like lead; there were all the sufferings that he had

experienced since his arrival in Rome, the destruction of his illusions,

the wounds dealt to his delicacy, the buffets with which men and things

had responded to his young enthusiasm; and, lying yet more deeply within

his heart, there was the sum total of human wretchedness, the thought of

famished ones howling for food, of mothers whose breasts were drained and

who sobbed whilst kissing their hungry babes, of fathers without work,

who clenched their fists and revolted--indeed, the whole of that hateful

misery which is as old as mankind itself, which has preyed upon mankind

since its earliest hour, and which he now had everywhere found increasing

in horror and havoc, without a gleam of hope that it would ever be

healed. And withal, yet more immense and more incurable, he felt within

him a nameless sorrow to which he could assign no precise cause or

name--an universal, an illimitable sorrow with which he melted

despairingly, and which was perhaps the very sorrow of life.

“O Holy Father!” he exclaimed, “I myself have no existence and my book

has no existence. I desired, passionately desired to see your Holiness

that I might explain and defend myself. But I no longer know, I can no

longer recall a single one of the things that I wished to say, I can only

weep, weep the tears which are stifling me. Yes, I am but a poor man, and

the only need I feel is to speak to you of the poor. Oh! the poor ones,

oh! the lowly ones, whom for two years past I have seen in our faubourgs

of Paris, so wretched and so full of pain; the poor little children that

I have picked out of the snow, the poor little angels who had eaten

nothing for two days; the women too, consumed by consumption, without

bread or fire, shivering in filthy hovels; and the men thrown on the

street by slackness of trade, weary of begging for work as one begs for

alms, sinking back into night, drunken with rage and harbouring the sole

avenging thought of setting the whole city afire! And that night too,

that terrible night, when in a room of horror I beheld a mother who had

just killed herself with her five little ones, she lying on a palliasse

suckling her last-born, and two little girls, two pretty little blondes,

sleeping the last sleep beside her, while the two boys had succumbed

farther away, one of them crouching against a wall, and the other lying

upon the floor, distorted as though by a last effort to avoid death!...

O Holy Father! I am but an ambassador, the messenger of those who suffer

and who sob, the humble delegate of the humble ones who die of want

beneath the hateful harshness, the frightful injustice of our present-day

social system! And I bring your Holiness their tears, and I lay their

tortures at your Holiness’s feet, I raise their cry of woe, like a cry

from the abyss, that cry which demands justice unless indeed the very

heavens are to fall! Oh! show your loving kindness, Holy Father, show

compassion!”

The young man had stretched out his arms and implored Leo XIII with a

gesture as of supreme appeal to the divine compassion. Then he continued:

“And here, Holy Father, in this splendid and eternal Rome, is not the

want and misery as frightful! During the weeks that I have roamed hither

and thither among the dust of famous ruins, I have never ceased to come

in contact with evils which demand cure. Ah! to think of all that is

crumbling, all that is expiring, the agony of so much glory, the fearful

sadness of a world which is dying of exhaustion and hunger! Yonder, under

your Holiness’s windows, have I not seen a district of horrors, a

district of unfinished palaces stricken like rickety children who cannot

attain to full growth, palaces which are already in ruins and have become

places of refuge for all the woeful misery of Rome? And here, as in

Paris, what a suffering multitude, what a shameless exhibition too of the

social sore, the devouring cancer openly tolerated and displayed in utter

heedlessness! There are whole families leading idle and hungry lives in

the splendid sunlight; fathers waiting for work to fall to them from

heaven; sons listlessly spending their days asleep on the dry grass;

mothers and daughters, withered before their time, shuffling about in

loquacious idleness. O Holy Father, already to-morrow at dawn may your

Holiness open that window yonder and with your benediction awaken that

great childish people, which still slumbers in ignorance and poverty! May

your Holiness give it the soul it lacks, a soul with the consciousness of

human dignity, of the necessary law of work, of free and fraternal life

regulated by justice only! Yes, may your Holiness make a people out of

that heap of wretches, whose excuse lies in all their bodily suffering

and mental night, who live like the beasts that go by and die, never

knowing nor understanding, yet ever lashed onward with the whip!”

Pierre’s sobs were gradually choking him, and it was only the impulse of

his passion which still enabled him to speak. “And, Holy Father,” he

continued, “is it not to you that I ought to address myself in the name

of all these wretched ones? Are you not the Father, and is it not before

the Father that the messenger of the poor and the lowly should kneel as I

am kneeling now? And is it not to the Father that he should bring the

huge burden of their sorrows and ask for pity and help and justice? Yes,

particularly for justice! And since you are the Father throw the doors

wide open so that all may enter, even the humblest of your children, the

faithful, the chance passers, even the rebellious ones and those who have

gone astray but who will perhaps enter and whom you will save from the

errors of abandonment! Be as the house of refuge on the dangerous road,

the loving greeter of the wayfarer, the lamp of hospitality which ever

burns, and is seen afar off and saves one in the storm! And since, O

Father, you are power be salvation also! You can do all; you have

centuries of domination behind you; you have nowadays risen to a moral

authority which has rendered you the arbiter of the world; you are there

before me like the very majesty of the sun which illumines and

fructifies! Oh! be the star of kindness and charity, be the redeemer;

take in hand once more the purpose of Jesus, which has been perverted by

being left in the hands of the rich and the powerful who have ended by

transforming the work of the Gospel into the most hateful of all

monuments of pride and tyranny! And since the work has been spoilt, take

it in hand, begin it afresh, place yourself on the side of the little

ones, the lowly ones, the poor ones, and bring them back to the peace,

the fraternity, and the justice of the original Christian communion. And

say, O Father, that I have understood you, that I have sincerely

expressed in this respect your most cherished ideas, the sole living

desire of your reign! The rest, oh! the rest, my book, myself, what

matter they! I do not defend myself, I only seek your glory and the

happiness of mankind. Say that from the depths of this Vatican you have

heard the rending of our corrupt modern societies! Say that you have

quivered with loving pity, say that you desire to prevent the awful

impending catastrophe by recalling the Gospel to the hearts of your

children who are stricken with madness, and by bringing them back to the

age of simplicity and purity when the first Christians lived together in

innocent brotherhood! Yes, it is for that reason, is it not, that you

have placed yourself, Father, on the side of the poor, and for that

reason I am here and entreat you for pity and kindness and justice with

my whole soul!”

Then the young man gave way beneath his emotion, and fell all of a heap

upon the floor amidst a rush of sobs--loud, endless sobs, which flowed

forth in billows, coming as it were not only from himself but from all

the wretched, from the whole world in whose veins sorrow coursed mingled

with the very blood of life. He was there as the ambassador of suffering,

as he had said. And indeed, at the foot of that mute and motionless pope,

he was like the personification of the whole of human woe.

Leo XIII, who was extremely fond of talking and could only listen to

others with an effort, had twice raised one of his pallid hands to

interrupt the young priest. Then, gradually overcome by astonishment,

touched by emotion himself, he had allowed him to continue, to go on to

the end of his outburst. A little blood even had suffused the snowy

whiteness of the Pontiff’s face whilst his eyes shone out yet more

brilliantly. And as soon as he saw the young man speechless at his feet,

shaken by those sobs which seemed to be wrenching away his heart, he

became anxious and leant forward: “Calm yourself, my son, raise

yourself,” he said.

But the sobs still continued, still flowed forth, all reason and respect

being swept away amidst that distracted plaint of a wounded soul, that

moan of suffering, dying flesh.

“Raise yourself, my son, it is not proper,” repeated Leo XIII. “There,

take that chair.” And with a gesture of authority he at last invited the

young man to sit down.

Pierre rose with pain, and at once seated himself in order that he might

not fall. He brushed his hair back from his forehead, and wiped his

scalding tears away with his hands, unable to understand what had just

happened, but striving to regain his self-possession.

“You appeal to the Holy Father,” said Leo XIII. “Ah! rest assured that

his heart is full of pity and affection for those who are unfortunate.

But that is not the point, it is our holy religion which is in question.

I have read your book, a bad book, I tell you so at once, the most

dangerous and culpable of books, precisely on account of its qualities,

the pages in which I myself felt interested. Yes, I was often fascinated,

I should not have continued my perusal had I not felt carried away,

transported by the ardent breath of your faith and enthusiasm. The

subject ‘New Rome’ is such a beautiful one and impassions me so much! and

certainly there is a book to be written under that title, but in a very

different spirit to yours. You think that you have understood me, my son,

that you have so penetrated yourself with my writings and actions that

you simply express my most cherished ideas. But no, no, you have not

understood me, and that is why I desired to see you, explain things to

you, and convince you.”

It was now Pierre who sat listening, mute and motionless. Yet he had only

come thither to defend himself; for three months past he had been

feverishly desiring this interview, preparing his arguments and feeling

confident of victory; and now although he heard his book spoken of as

dangerous and culpable he did not protest, did not reply with any one of

those good reasons which he had deemed so irresistible. But the fact was

that intense weariness had come upon him, the appeal that he had made,

the tears that he had shed had left him utterly exhausted. By and by,

however, he would be brave and would say what he had resolved to say.

“People do not understand me, do not understand me!” resumed Leo XIII

with an air of impatient irritation. “It is incredible what trouble I

have to make myself understood, in France especially! Take the temporal

power for instance; how can you have fancied that the Holy See would ever

enter into any compromise on that question? Such language is unworthy of

a priest, it is the chimerical dream of one who is ignorant of the

conditions in which the papacy has hitherto lived and in which it must

still live if it does not desire to disappear. Cannot you see the

sophistry of your argument that the Church becomes the loftier the more

it frees itself from the cares of terrestrial sovereignty? A purely

spiritual royalty, a sway of charity and love, indeed, ‘tis a fine

imaginative idea! But who will ensure us respect? Who will grant us the

alms of a stone on which to rest our head if we are ever driven forth and

forced to roam the highways? Who will guarantee our independence when we

are at the mercy of every state?... No, no! this soil of Rome is ours,

we have inherited it from the long line of our ancestors, and it is the

indestructible, eternal soil on which the Church is built, so that any

relinquishment would mean the downfall of the Holy Catholic Apostolic and

Roman Church. And, moreover, we could not relinquish it; we are bound by

our oath to God and man.”

He paused for a moment to allow Pierre to answer him. But the latter to

his stupefaction could say nothing, for he perceived that this pope spoke

as he was bound to speak. All the heavy mysterious things which had

weighed the young priest down whilst he was waiting in the ante-room, now

became more and more clearly defined. They were, indeed, the things which

he had seen and learnt since his arrival in Rome, the disillusions, the

rebuffs which he had experienced, all the many points of difference

between existing reality and imagination, whereby his dream of a return

to primitive Christianity was already half shattered. And in particular

he remembered the hour which he had spent on the dome of St. Peter’s,

when, in presence of the old city of glory so stubbornly clinging to its

purple, he had realised that he was an imbecile with his idea of a purely

spiritual pope. He had that day fled from the furious shouts of the

pilgrims acclaiming the Pope-King. He had only accepted the necessity for

money, that last form of servitude still binding the Pope to earth. But

all had crumbled afterwards, when he had beheld the real Rome, the

ancient city of pride and domination where the papacy can never be

complete without the temporal power. Too many bonds, dogma, tradition,

environment, the very soil itself rendered the Church for ever immutable.

It was only in appearances that she could make concessions, and a time

would even arrive when her concessions would cease, in presence of the

impossibility of going any further without committing suicide. If his,

Pierre’s, dream of a New Rome were ever to be realised, it would only be

faraway from ancient Rome. Only in some distant region could the new

Christianity arise, for Catholicism was bound to die on the spot when the

last of the popes, riveted to that land of ruins, should disappear

beneath the falling dome of St. Peter’s, which would fall as surely as

the temple of Jupiter had fallen! And, as for that pope of the present

day, though he might have no kingdom, though age might have made him weak

and fragile, though his bloodless pallor might be that of some ancient

idol of wax, he none the less flared with the red passion for universal

sovereignty, he was none the less the stubborn scion of his ancestry, the

Pontifex Maximus, the Caesar Imperator in whose veins flowed the blood of

Augustus, master of the world.

“You must be fully aware,” resumed Leo XIII, “of the ardent desire for

unity which has always possessed us. We were very happy on the day when

we unified the rite, by imposing the Roman rite throughout the whole

Catholic world. This is one of our most cherished victories, for it can

do much to uphold our authority. And I hope that our efforts in the East

will end by bringing our dear brethren of the dissident communions back

to us, in the same way as I do not despair of convincing the Anglican

sects, without speaking of the other so-called Protestant sects who will

be compelled to return to the bosom of the only Church, the Catholic,

Apostolic, and Roman Church, when the times predicted by the Christ shall

be accomplished. But a thing which you did not say in your book is that

the Church can relinquish nothing whatever of dogma. On the contrary, you

seem to fancy that an agreement might be effected, concessions made on

either side, and that, my son, is a culpable thought, such language as a

priest cannot use without being guilty of a crime. No, the truth is

absolute, not a stone of the edifice shall be changed. Oh! in matters of

form, we will do whatever may be asked. We are ready to adopt the most

conciliatory courses if it be only a question of turning certain

difficulties and weighing expressions in order to facilitate agreement..

.. Again, there is the part we have taken in contemporary socialism, and

here too it is necessary that we should be understood. Those whom you

have so well called the disinherited of the world, are certainly the

object of our solicitude. If socialism be simply a desire for justice,

and a constant determination to come to the help of the weak and the

suffering, who can claim to give more thought to the matter and work with

more energy than ourselves? Has not the Church always been the mother of

the afflicted, the helper and benefactress of the poor? We are for all

reasonable progress, we admit all new social forms which will promote

peace and fraternity.... Only we can but condemn that socialism which

begins by driving away God as a means of ensuring the happiness of

mankind. Therein lies simple savagery, an abominable relapse into the

primitive state in which there can only be catastrophe, conflagration,

and massacre. And that again is a point on which you have not laid

sufficient stress, for you have not shown in your book that there can be

no progress outside the pale of the Church, that she is really the only

initiatory and guiding power to whom one may surrender oneself without

fear. Indeed, and in this again you have sinned, it seemed to me as if

you set God on one side, as if for you religion lay solely in a certain

bent of the soul, a florescence of love and charity, which sufficed one

to work one’s salvation. But that is execrable heresy. God is ever

present, master of souls and bodies; and religion remains the bond, the

law, the very governing power of mankind, apart from which there can only

be barbarism in this world and damnation in the next. And, once again,

forms are of no importance; it is sufficient that dogma should remain.

Thus our adhesion to the French Republic proves that we in no wise mean

to link the fate of religion to that of any form of government, however

august and ancient the latter may be. Dynasties may have done their time,

but God is eternal. Kings may perish, but God lives! And, moreover, there

is nothing anti-Christian in the republican form of government; indeed,

on the contrary, it would seem like an awakening of that Christian

commonwealth to which you have referred in some really charming pages.

The worst is that liberty at once becomes license, and that our desire

for conciliation is often very badly requited.... But ah! what a

wicked book you have written, my son,--with the best intentions, I am

willing to believe,--and how your silence shows that you are beginning to

recognise the disastrous consequences of your error.”

Pierre still remained silent, overcome, feeling as if his arguments would

fall against some deaf, blind, and impenetrable rock, which it was

useless to assail since nothing could enter it. And only one thing now

preoccupied him; he wondered how it was that a man of such intelligence

and such ambition had not formed a more distinct and exact idea of the

modern world. He could divine that the Pope possessed much information

and carried the map of Christendom with many of the needs, deeds, and

hopes of the nations, in his mind amidst his complicated diplomatic

enterprises; but at the same time what gaps there were in his knowledge!

The truth, no doubt, was that his personal acquaintance with the world

was confined to his brief nunciature at Brussels.*

* That too, was in 1843-44, and the world is now utterly unlike

what it was then!--Trans.

During his occupation of the see of Perugia, which had followed, he had

only mingled with the dawning life of young Italy. And for eighteen years

now he had been shut up in the Vatican, isolated from the rest of mankind

and communicating with the nations solely through his _entourage_, which

was often most unintelligent, most mendacious, and most treacherous.

Moreover, he was an Italian priest, a superstitious and despotic High

Pontiff, bound by tradition, subjected to the influences of race

environment, pecuniary considerations, and political necessities, not to

speak of his great pride, the conviction that he ought to be implicitly

obeyed in all things as the one sole legitimate power upon earth. Therein

lay fatal causes of mental deformity, of errors and gaps in his

extraordinary brain, though the latter certainly possessed many admirable

qualities, quickness of comprehension and patient stubbornness of will

and strength to draw conclusions and act. Of all his powers, however,

that of intuition was certainly the most wonderful, for was it not this

alone which, owing to his voluntary imprisonment, enabled him to divine

the vast evolution of humanity at the present day? He was thus keenly

conscious of the dangers surrounding him, of the rising tide of democracy

and the boundless ocean of science which threatened to submerge the

little islet where the dome of St. Peter’s yet triumphed. And the object

of all his policy, of all his labour, was to conquer so that he might

reign. If he desired the unity of the Church it was in order that the

latter might become strong and inexpugnable in the contest which he

foresaw. If he preached conciliation, granting concessions in matters of

form, tolerating audacious actions on the part of American bishops, it

was because he deeply and secretly feared the dislocation of the Church,

some sudden schism which might hasten disaster. And this fear explained

his returning affection for the people, the concern which he displayed

respecting socialism, and the Christian solution which he offered to the

woes of earthly life. As Caesar was stricken low, was not the long

contest for possession of the people over, and would not the people, the

great silent multitude, speak out, and give itself to him, the Pope? He

had begun experiments with France, forsaking the lost cause of the

monarchy and recognising the Republic which he hoped might prove strong

and victorious, for in spite of everything France remained the eldest

daughter of the Church, the only Catholic nation which yet possessed

sufficient strength to restore the temporal power at some propitious

moment. And briefly Leo’s desire was to reign. To reign by the support of

France since it seemed impossible to do so by the support of Germany! To

reign by the support of the people, since the people was now becoming the

master, the bestower of thrones! To reign by means even of an Italian

Republic, if only that Republic could wrest Rome from the House of Savoy

and restore her to him, a federal Republic which would make him President

of the United States of Italy pending the time when he should be

President of the United States of Europe! To reign in spite of everybody

and everything, such was his ambition, to reign over the world, even as

Augustus had reigned, Augustus whose devouring blood alone upheld this

expiring old man, yet so stubbornly clinging to power!

“And another crime of yours, my son,” resumed Leo XIII, “is that you have

dared to ask for a new religion. That is impious, blasphemous,

sacrilegious. There is but one religion in the world, our Holy Catholic

Apostolic and Roman Religion, apart from which there can be but darkness

and damnation. I quite understand that what you mean to imply is a return

to early Christianity. But the error of so-called Protestantism, so

culpable and so deplorable in its consequences, never had any other

pretext. As soon as one departs from the strict observance of dogma and

absolute respect for tradition one sinks into the most frightful

precipices.... Ah! schism, schism, my son, is a crime beyond

forgiveness, an assassination of the true God, a device of the loathsome

Beast of Temptation which Hell sends into the world to work the ruin of

the faithful! If your book contained nothing beyond those words ‘a new

religion,’ it would be necessary to destroy and burn it like so much

poison fatal in its effects upon the human soul.”

He continued at length on this subject, while Pierre recalled what Don

Vigilio had told him of those all-powerful Jesuits who at the Vatican as

elsewhere remained in the background, secretly but none the less

decisively governing the Church. Was it true then that this pope, whose

opportunist tendencies were so freely displayed, was one of them, a mere

docile instrument in their hands, though he fancied himself penetrated

with the doctrines of St. Thomas Aquinas? In any case, like them he

compounded with the century, made approaches to the world, and was

willing to flatter it in order that he might possess it. Never before had

Pierre so cruelly realised that the Church was now so reduced that she

could only live by dint of concessions and diplomacy. And he could at

last distinctly picture that Roman clergy which at first is so difficult

of comprehension to a French priest, that Government of the Church,

represented by the pope, the cardinals, and the prelates, whom the Deity

has appointed to govern and administer His mundane possessions--mankind

and the earth. They begin by setting that very Deity on one side, in the

depths of the tabernacle, and impose whatever dogmas they please as so

many essential truths. That the Deity exists is evident, since they

govern in His name which is sufficient for everything. And being by

virtue of their charge the masters, if they consent to sign covenants,

Concordats, it is only as matters of form; they do not observe them, and

never yield to anything but force, always reserving the principle of

their absolute sovereignty which must some day finally triumph. Pending

that day’s arrival, they act as diplomatists, slowly carrying on their

work of conquest as the Deity’s functionaries; and religion is but the

public homage which they pay to the Deity, and which they organise with

all the pomp and magnificence that is likely to influence the multitude.

Their only object is to enrapture and conquer mankind in order that the

latter may submit to the rule of the Deity, that is the rule of

themselves, since they are the Deity’s visible representatives, expressly

delegated to govern the world. In a word, they straightway descend from

Roman law, they are still but the offspring of the old pagan soul of

Rome, and if they have lasted until now and if they rely on lasting for

ever, until the awaited hour when the empire of the world shall be

restored to them, it is because they are the direct heirs of the

purple-robed Caesars, the uninterrupted and living progeny of the blood

of Augustus.

And thereupon Pierre felt ashamed of his tears. Ah! those poor nerves of

his, that outburst of sentiment and enthusiasm to which he had given way!

His very modesty was appalled, for he felt as if he had exhibited his

soul in utter nakedness. And so uselessly too, in that room where nothing

similar had ever been said before, and in presence of that Pontiff-King

who could not understand him. His plan of the popes reigning by means of

the poor and lowly now horrified him. His idea of the papacy going to the

people, at last rid of its former masters, seemed to him a suggestion

worthy of a wolf, for if the papacy should go to the people it would only

be to prey upon it as the others had done. And really he, Pierre, must

have been mad when he had imagined that a Roman prelate, a cardinal, a

pope, was capable of admitting a return to the Christian commonwealth, a

fresh florescence of primitive Christianity to pacify the aged nations

whom hatred consumed. Such a conception indeed was beyond the

comprehension of men who for centuries had regarded themselves as masters

of the world, so heedless and disdainful of the lowly and the suffering,

that they had at last become altogether incapable of either love or

charity.*

* The reader should bear in mind that these remarks apply to the

Italian cardinals and prelates, whose vanity and egotism are

remarkable.--Trans.

Leo XIII, however, was still holding forth in his full, unwearying voice.

And the young priest heard him saying: “Why did you write that page on

Lourdes which shows such a thoroughly bad spirit? Lourdes, my son, has

rendered great services to religion. To the persons who have come and

told me of the touching miracles which are witnessed at the Grotto almost

daily, I have often expressed my desire to see those miracles confirmed,

proved by the most rigorous scientific tests. And, indeed, according to

what I have read, I do not think that the most evilly disposed minds can

entertain any further doubt on the matter, for the miracles _are_ proved

scientifically in the most irrefutable manner. Science, my son, must be

God’s servant. It can do nothing against Him, it is only by His grace

that it arrives at the truth. All the solutions which people nowadays

pretend to discover and which seemingly destroy dogma will some day be

recognised as false, for God’s truth will remain victorious when the

times shall be accomplished. That is a very simple certainty, known even

to little children, and it would suffice for the peace and salvation of

mankind, if mankind would content itself with it. And be convinced, my

son, that faith and reason are not incompatible. Have we not got St.

Thomas who foresaw everything, explained everything, regulated

everything? Your faith has been shaken by the onslaught of the spirit of

examination, you have known trouble and anguish which Heaven has been

pleased to spare our priests in this land of ancient belief, this city of

Rome which the blood of so many martyrs has sanctified. However, we have

no fear of the spirit of examination, study St. Thomas, read him

thoroughly and your faith will return, definitive and triumphant, firmer

than ever.”

These remarks caused Pierre as much dismay as if fragments of the

celestial vault were raining on his head. O God of truth, miracles--the

miracles of Lourdes!--proved scientifically, faith in the dogmas

compatible with reason, and the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas sufficient

to instil certainty into the minds of this present generation! How could

one answer that, and indeed why answer it at all?

“Yes, yours is a most culpable and dangerous book,” concluded Leo XIII;

“its very title ‘New Rome’ is mendacious and poisonous, and the work is

the more to be condemned as it offers every fascination of style, every

perversion of generous fancy. Briefly it is such a book that a priest, if

he conceived it in an hour of error, can have no other duty than that of

burning it in public with the very hand which traced the pages of error

and scandal.”

All at once Pierre rose up erect. He was about to exclaim: “‘Tis true, I

had lost my faith, but I thought I had found it again in the compassion

which the woes of the world set in my heart. You were my last hope, the

awaited saviour. But, behold, that again is a dream, you cannot take the

work of Jesus in hand once more and pacify mankind so as to avert the

frightful fratricidal war which is preparing. You cannot leave your

throne and come along the roads with the poor and the humble to carry out

the supreme work of fraternity. Well, it is all over with you, your

Vatican and your St. Peter’s. All is falling before the onslaught of the

rising multitude and growing science. You no longer exist, there are only

ruins and remnants left here.”

However, he did not speak those words. He simply bowed and said: “Holy

Father, I make my submission and reprobate my book.” And as he thus

replied his voice trembled with disgust, and his open hands made a

gesture of surrender as though he were yielding up his soul. The words he

had chosen were precisely those of the required formula: _Auctor

laudabiliter se subjecit et opus reprobavit_. “The author has laudably

made his submission and reprobated his work.” No error could have been

confessed, no hope could have accomplished self-destruction with loftier

despair, more sovereign grandeur. But what frightful irony: that book

which he had sworn never to withdraw, and for whose triumph he had fought

so passionately, and which he himself now denied and suppressed, not

because he deemed it guilty, but because he had just realised that it was

as futile, as chimerical as a lover’s desire, a poet’s dream. Ah! yes,

since he had been mistaken, since he had merely dreamed, since he had

found there neither the Deity nor the priest that he had desired for the

happiness of mankind, why should he obstinately cling to the illusion of

an awakening which was impossible! ‘Twere better to fling his book on the

ground like a dead leaf, better to deny it, better to cut it away like a

dead limb that could serve no purpose whatever!

Somewhat surprised by such a prompt victory Leo XIII raised a slight

exclamation of content. “That is well said, my son, that is well said!

You have spoken the only words that can become a priest.”

And in his evident satisfaction, he who left nothing to chance, who

carefully prepared each of his audiences, deciding beforehand what words

he would say, what gestures even he would make, unbent somewhat and

displayed real _bonhomie_. Unable to understand, mistaking the real

motives of this rebellious priest’s submission, he tasted positive

delight in having so easily reduced him to silence, the more so as report

had stated the young man to be a terrible revolutionary. And thus his

Holiness felt quite proud of such a conversion. “Moreover, my son,” he

said, “I did not expect less of one of your distinguished mind. There can

be no loftier enjoyment than that of owning one’s error, doing penance,

and submitting.”

He had again taken the glass off the little table beside him and was

stirring the last spoonful of syrup before drinking it. And Pierre was

amazed at again finding him as he had found him at the outset, shrunken,

bereft of sovereign majesty, and simply suggestive of some aged

_bourgeois_ drinking his glass of sugared water before getting into bed.

It was as if after growing and radiating, like a planet ascending to the

zenith, he had again sunk to the level of the soil in all human

mediocrity. Again did Pierre find him puny and fragile, with the slender

neck of a little sick bird, and all those marks of senile ugliness which

rendered him so exacting with regard to his portraits, whether they were

oil paintings or photographs, gold medals, or marble busts, for of one

and the other he would say that the artist must not portray “Papa Pecci”

but Leo XIII, the great Pope, of whom he desired to leave such a lofty

image to posterity. And Pierre, after momentarily ceasing to see them,

was again embarrassed by the handkerchief which lay on the Pope’s lap,

and the dirty cassock soiled by snuff. His only feelings now were

affectionate pity for such white old age, deep admiration for the

stubborn power of life which had found a refuge in those dark black eyes,

and respectful deference, such as became a worker, for that large brain

which harboured such vast projects and overflowed with such innumerable

ideas and actions.

The audience was over, and the young man bowed low: “I thank your

Holiness for having deigned to give me such a fatherly reception,” he

said.

However, Leo XIII detained him for a moment longer, speaking to him of

France and expressing his sincere desire to see her prosperous, calm, and

strong for the greater advantage of the Church. And Pierre, during that

last moment, had a singular vision, a strange haunting fancy. As he gazed

at the Holy Father’s ivory brow and thought of his great age and of his

liability to be carried off by the slightest chill, he involuntarily

recalled the scene instinct with a fierce grandeur which is witnessed

each time a pope dies. He recalled Pius IX, Giovanni Mastai, two hours

after death, his face covered by a white linen cloth, while the

pontifical family surrounded him in dismay; and then Cardinal Pecci, the

_Camerlingo_, approaching the bed, drawing aside the veil and dealing

three taps with his silver hammer on the forehead of the deceased,

repeating at each tap the call, “Giovanni! Giovanni! Giovanni!” And as

the corpse made no response, turning, after an interval of a few seconds,

and saying: “The Pope is dead!” And at the same time, yonder in the Via

Giulia Pierre pictured Cardinal Boccanera, the present _Camerlingo_,

awaiting his turn with his silver hammer, and he imagined Leo XIII,

otherwise Gioachino Pecci, dead, like his predecessor, his face covered

by a white linen cloth and his corpse surrounded by his prelates in that

very room. And he saw the _Camerlingo_ approach, draw the veil aside and

tap the ivory forehead, each time repeating the call: “Gioachino!

Gioachino! Gioachino!” Then, as the corpse did not answer, he waited for

a few seconds and turned and said “The Pope is dead!” Did Leo XIII

remember how he had thrice tapped the forehead of Pius IX, and did he

ever feel on the brow an icy dread of the silver hammer with which he had

armed his own _Camerlingo_, the man whom he knew to be his implacable

adversary, Cardinal Boccanera?

“Go in peace, my son,” at last said his Holiness by way of parting

benediction. “Your transgression will be forgiven you since you have

confessed and testify your horror for it.”

With distressful spirit, accepting humiliation as well-deserved

chastisement for his chimerical fancies, Pierre retired, stepping

backwards according to the customary ceremonial. He made three deep bows

and crossed the threshold without turning, followed by the black eyes of

Leo XIII, which never left him. Still he saw the Pope stretch his arm

towards the table to take up the newspaper which he had been reading

prior to the audience, for Leo retained a great fancy for newspapers, and

was very inquisitive as to news, though in the isolation in which he

lived he frequently made mistakes respecting the relative importance of

articles. And once more the chamber sank into deep quietude, whilst the

two lamps continued to diffuse a soft and steady light.

In the centre of the _anticamera segreta_ Signor Squadra stood waiting

black and motionless. And on noticing that Pierre in his flurry forgot to

take his hat from the pier table, he himself discreetly fetched it and

handed it to the young priest with a silent bow. Then without any

appearance of haste, he walked ahead to conduct the visitor back to the

Sala Clementina. The endless promenade through the interminable

ante-rooms began once more, and there was still not a soul, not a sound,

not a breath. In each empty room stood the one solitary lamp, burning low

amidst a yet deeper silence than before. The wilderness seemed also to

have grown larger as the night advanced, casting its gloom over the few

articles of furniture scattered under the lofty gilded ceilings, the

thrones, the stools, the pier tables, the crucifixes, and the candelabra

which recurred in each succeeding room. And at last the Sala Clementina

which the Swiss Guards had just quitted was reached again, and Signor

Squadra, who hitherto had not turned his head, thereupon drew aside

without word or gesture, and, saluting Pierre with a last bow, allowed

him to pass on. Then he himself disappeared.

And Pierre descended the two flights of the monumental staircase where

the gas jets in their globes of ground glass glimmered like night lights

amidst a wondrously heavy silence now that the footsteps of the sentries

no longer resounded on the landings. And he crossed the Court of St.

Damasus, empty and lifeless in the pale light of the lamps above the

steps, and descended the Scala Pia, that other great stairway as dim,

deserted, and void of life as all the rest, and at last passed beyond the

bronze door which a porter slowly shut behind him. And with what a

rumble, what a fierce roar did the hard metal close upon all that was

within; all the accumulated darkness and silence; the dead, motionless

centuries perpetuated by tradition; the indestructible idols, the dogmas,

bound round for preservation like mummies; every chain which may weigh on

one or hamper one, the whole apparatus of bondage and sovereign

domination, with whose formidable clang all the dark, deserted halls

re-echoed.

Once more the young man found himself alone on the gloomy expanse of the

Piazza of St. Peter’s. Not a single belated pedestrian was to be seen.

There was only the lofty, livid, ghost-like obelisk, emerging between its

four candelabra, from the mosaic pavement of red and serpentine porphyry.

The facade of the Basilica also showed vaguely, pale as a vision, whilst

from it on either side like a pair of giant arms stretched the quadruple

colonnade, a thicket of stone, steeped in obscurity. The dome was but a

huge roundness scarcely discernible against the moonless sky; and only

the jets of the fountains, which could at last be detected rising like

slim phantoms ever on the move, lent a voice to the silence, the endless

murmur of a plaint of sorrow coming one knew not whence. Ah! how great

was the melancholy grandeur of that slumber, that famous square, the

Vatican and St. Peter’s, thus seen by night when wrapped in silence and

darkness! But suddenly the clock struck ten with so slow and loud a chime

that never, so it seemed, had more solemn and decisive an hour rung out

amidst blacker and more unfathomable gloom. All Pierre’s poor weary frame

quivered at the sound as he stood motionless in the centre of the

expanse. What! had he spent barely three-quarters of an hour, chatting up

yonder with that white old man who had just wrenched all his soul away

from him! Yes, it was the final wrench; his last belief had been torn

from his bleeding heart and brain. The supreme experiment had been made,

a world had collapsed within him. And all at once he thought of Monsignor

Nani, and reflected that he alone had been right. He, Pierre, had been

told that in any case he would end by doing what Monsignor Nani might

desire, and he was now stupefied to find that he had done so.

But sudden despair seized upon him, such atrocious distress of spirit

that, from the depths of the abyss of darkness where he stood, he raised

his quivering arms into space and spoke aloud: “No, no, Thou art not

here, O God of life and love, O God of Salvation! But come, appear since

Thy children are perishing because they know neither who Thou art, nor

where to find Thee amidst the Infinite of the worlds!”

Above the vast square spread the vast sky of dark-blue velvet, the silent

disturbing Infinite, where the constellations palpitated. Over the roofs

of the Vatican, Charles’s Wain seemed yet more tilted, its golden wheels

straying from the right path, its golden shaft upreared in the air;

whilst yonder, over Rome towards the Via Giulia, Orion was about to

disappear and already showed but one of the three golden stars which

bedecked his belt.

XV.

IT was nearly daybreak when Pierre fell asleep, exhausted by emotion and

hot with fever. And at nine o’clock, when he had risen and breakfasted,

he at once wished to go down into Cardinal Boccanera’s rooms where the

bodies of Dario and Benedetta had been laid in state in order that the

members of the family, its friends and clients, might bring them their

tears and prayers.