The Three Cities Trilogy: Chapter 14

Chapter 14

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.

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