"Rossi?"
"Yes."
"After she had signed the denunciation a warrant for his arrest was made
out and given to the Carabineers."
"It mentioned everything?"
"Everything."
"Who he is and all about him?"
"Yes, your Holiness."
The Pope fingered his crucifix again, and said, "Who is he, Father
Pifferi?"
The Capuchin did not reply.
"Father Pifferi, I ask you who he is?"
Still the Capuchin did not reply, and the Pope smiled a pitiful smile,
touched the friar's arm with a caressing gesture, and said, "Don't be
afraid for the Holy Father, carissimo. If that poor child, who would
have died rather than sacrifice her husband, could be so calm and
strong...."
"Holy Father," said the Capuchin, "when you asked the lady to denounce
David Rossi you thought of him only as an enemy of the Church and of its
head, trying to pull down both and destroy civil society--isn't that
so?"
The Pope bent his head.
"Holy Father, if ... if you had known that he was something more than
that ... something nearer ... if, for example, you had been told
that ... that he was the relative of a priest, would you have asked for his
denunciation just the same?"
The old Capuchin had stammered, but the Pope answered in a firm voice,
"That would have made no difference, my son. The blessed Scriptures do
not conceal the sin of Judas, and shall we conceal the offences of those
who come within the circle of our own families?"
"Holy Father," said the Capuchin, "if you had been told that he was
related to a prelate of your domestic household...."
He stopped, and the Pope answered in a voice that trembled slightly,
"Still it would have made no difference. The enemies of the Almighty are
watching day and night, and shall His holy Church be imperilled and
abased by the weakness of His servant?"
"Holy Father, if ... if you had been told that ... that he was the
kinsman of a Cardinal?"
The Pope was struggling to control himself. "Even then it would have
made no difference. I am old and weak, but God would have supported me,
and though I had been called upon to cut off my right hand, or give my
body to be burned, still...."
His voice quivered and died in his throat, and there was a moment's
pause.
"Holy Father," said the Capuchin, turning his eyes away, "if you had
been told that he was the nearest of kin to the Pope himself...."
The Pope dropped the crucifix which was trembling in his hand, and half
rose from his chair. "Then ... even then ... it would have ... but the
will of God be done," he said, and he could not utter another word.
At that moment the Easter bells began to ring. The deep-toned bells of
St. Peter's came first with its joyful peal, and then the bells of the
other churches of the city took up the rapturous melody. In the Basilica
the veil before the altar had been rent with a loud crash, and the
Gloria in Excelsis was being sung.
At the same moment a prelate vested in a white tunic entered the Pope's
room, and kneeling in the middle of the floor, he said, "Holy Father, I
announce to you a great joy. Hallelujah! The Lord is risen again."
The Pope tried to rise from his seat, but could not do so. "Help me,
Monsignor," he said faintly, and the prelate raised him to his feet.
Then leaning on the prelate's arm, he walked to the door of his private
chapel. On reaching it he looked back at Father Pifferi, who was going
silently out of the room.
"Addio, carissimo," he said, in a pitiful voice, but the Capuchin could
not reply.
Some moments afterwards the Pope was quite alone. The arched windows of
the little chapel were covered with heavy red curtains, but the clanging
of the brass tongues in the cupola, the deep throb of the organ, and the
rolling waves of the voices of the people singing the grand Hallelujah,
found their way into the darkened chamber. But above all other sounds in
the ears of the Pope as he lay prostrate on the altar steps was the
sound of a voice which said, "You, the Vicar of Jesus Christ; you, the
rock on which the Saviour built His Church; you, the living voice of
God; you, the infallible one; you, who fill the most exalted dignity on
earth--_remember you are but clay_."