THE THREE CITIES

 ROME

 BY

 EMILE ZOLA

 TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY

 PART V

XIV

THAT evening, when Pierre emerged from the Borgo in front of the Vatican, a sonorous stroke rang out from the clock amidst the deep silence of thedark and sleepy district. It was only half-past eight, and being inadvance the young priest resolved to wait some twenty minutes in order toreach the doors of the papal apartments precisely at nine, the hour fixedfor his audience. 

This respite brought him some relief amidst the infinite emotion andgrief which gripped his heart. That tragic afternoon which he had spentin the chamber of death, where Dario and Benedetta now slept the eternalsleep in one another's arms, had left him very weary. He was haunted by awild, dolorous vision of the two lovers, and involuntary sighs came fromhis lips whilst tears continually moistened his eyes. He had beenaltogether unable to eat that evening. Ah! how he would have liked tohide himself and weep at his ease! His heart melted at each freshthought. The pitiful death of the lovers intensified the grievous feelingwith which his book was instinct, and impelled him to yet greatercompassion, a perfect anguish of charity for all who suffered in theworld. And he was so distracted by the thought of the many physical andmoral sores of Paris and of Rome, where he had beheld so much unjust andabominable suffering, that at each step he took he feared lest he shouldburst into sobs with arms upstretched towards the blackness of heaven. 

In the hope of somewhat calming himself he began to walk slowly acrossthe Piazza of St. Peter's, now all darkness and solitude. On arriving hehad fancied that he was losing himself in a murky sea, but by degrees hiseyes grew accustomed to the dimness. The vast expanse was only lighted bythe four candelabra at the corners of the obelisk and by infrequent lampsskirting the buildings which run on either hand towards the Basilica. Under the colonnade, too, other lamps threw yellow gleams across theforest of pillars, showing up their stone trunks in fantastic fashion;while on the piazza only the pale, ghostly obelisk was at all distinctlyvisible. Pierre could scarcely perceive the dim, silent facade of St. Peter's; whilst of the dome he merely divined a gigantic, bluey roundnessfaintly shadowed against the sky. In the obscurity he at first heard theplashing of the fountains without being at all able to see them, but onapproaching he at last distinguished the slender phantoms of the everrising jets which fell again in spray. And above the vast squarestretched the vast and moonless sky of a deep velvety blue, where thestars were large and radiant like carbuncles; Charles's Wain, with goldenwheels and golden shaft tilted back as it were, over the roof of theVatican, 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 piazzathere was here merely a confused jumble of walls, amidst which only twogleams of light appeared on the floor of the papal apartments. The Courtof San Damaso was, however, lighted, for the conservatory-like glass-workof two of its sides sparkled as with the reflection of gas lamps whichcould 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 camea third who in his turn disappeared, nothing remaining but a rhythmicalfar-away echo of steps. The spot was indeed a perfect desert, there wereneither promenaders nor passers-by, nor was there even the shadow of aprowler in the pillared forest of the colonnade, which was as empty asthe wild primeval forests of the world's infancy. And what a solemndesert it was, full of the silence of haughty desolation. Never had sovast and black a presentment of slumber, so instinct with the sovereignnobility of death, appeared to Pierre. 

At ten minutes to nine he at last made up his mind and went towards thebronze portal. Only one of the folding doors was now open at the end ofthe right-hand porticus, where the increasing density of the gloomsteeped everything in night. Pierre remembered the instructions whichMonsignor Nani had given him; at each door that he reached he was to askfor Signor Squadra without adding a word, and thereupon each door wouldopen and he would have nothing to do but to let himself be guided on. Noone but the prelate now knew that he was there, since Benedetta, the onlybeing to whom he had confided the secret, was dead. When he had crossedthe threshold of the bronze doors and found himself in presence of themotionless, sleeping Swiss Guard, who was on duty there, he simply spokethe 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 ofthe Scala Pia, the stone stairway which ascends to the Court of SanDamaso. And not a soul was to be seen: there was but the faint sound ofhis own light footsteps and the sleepy glow of the gas jets whose lightwas softly whitened by globes of frosted glass. Up above, on reaching thecourtyard he found it a solitude, whose slumber seemed sepulchral amidstthe mournful gleams of the gas lamps which cast a pallid reflection onthe lofty glass-work of the facades. And feeling somewhat nervous, affected by the quiver which pervaded all that void and silence, Pierrehastened on, turning to the right, towards the low flight of steps whichleads to the staircase of the Pope's private apartments. 

Here stood a superb gendarme in full uniform. "Signor Squadra, " saidPierre, 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. Thegas, burning in globes of round glass, seemed to have been already turneddown in a spirit of prudent economy. And in the glimmering light nothingcould have been more mournfully solemn than that cold and pallidstaircase. On each landing there was a Swiss Guard, halbard in hand, andin the heavy slumber spreading through the palace one only heard theregular monotonous footsteps of these men, ever marching up and down, inorder no doubt that they might not succumb to the benumbing influence oftheir surroundings. 

Amidst the invading dimness and the quivering silence the ascent of thestairs seemed interminable to Pierre, who by the time he reached thesecond-floor landing imagined that he had been climbing for ages. There, outside the glass door of the Sala Clementina, only the right-hand halfof which was open, a last Swiss Guard stood watching. 

"Signor Squadra, " Pierre said again, and the Guard drew back to let himpass. 

The Sala Clementina, spacious enough by daylight, seemed immense at thatnocturnal hour, in the twilight glimmer of its lamps. All the opulentdecorative-work, sculpture, painting, and gilding became blended, thewalls assuming a tawny vagueness amidst which appeared bright patcheslike the sparkle of precious stones. There was not an article offurniture, nothing but the endless pavement stretching away into thesemi-darkness. At last, however, near a door at the far end Pierre espiedsome men dozing on a bench. They were three Swiss Guards. "SignorSquadra, " he said to them. 

One of the Guards thereupon slowly rose and left the hall, and Pierreunderstood that he was to wait. He did not dare to move, disturbed as hewas by the sound of his own footsteps on the paved floor, so he contentedhimself with gazing around and picturing the crowds which at timespeopled that vast apartment, the first of the many papal ante-chambers. But before long the Guard returned, and behind him, on the threshold ofthe adjoining room, appeared a man of forty or thereabouts, who was cladin black from head to foot and suggested a cross between a butler and abeadle. He had a good-looking, clean-shaven face, with somewhatpronounced nose and large, clear, fixed eyes. "Signor Squadra, " saidPierre for the last time. 

The man bowed as if to say that he was Signor Squadra, and then, with afresh reverence, he invited the priest to follow him. Thereupon at aleisurely step, one behind the other, they began to thread theinterminable suite of waiting-rooms. Pierre, who was acquainted with theceremonial, of which he had often spoken with Narcisse, recognised thedifferent apartments as he passed through them, recalling their names andpurpose, and peopling them in imagination with the various officials ofthe papal retinue who have the right to occupy them. These according totheir rank cannot go beyond certain doors, so that the persons who are tohave audience of the Pope are passed on from the servants to the NobleGuards, from the Noble Guards to the honorary /Camerieri/, and from thelatter to the /Camerieri segreti/, until they at last reach the presenceof the Holy Father. At eight o'clock, however, the ante-rooms empty andbecome both deserted and dim, only a few lamps being left alight upon thepier tables standing here and there against the walls. 

And first Pierre came to the ante-room of the /bussolanti/, mere ushersclad in red velvet broidered with the papal arms, who conduct visitors tothe door of the ante-room of honour. At that late hour only one of themwas left there, seated on a bench in such a dark corner that his purpletunic looked quite black. Then the Hall of the Gendarmes was crossed, where according to the regulations the secretaries of cardinals and otherhigh personages await their masters' return; and this was now completelyempty, void both of the handsome blue uniforms with white shoulder beltsand the cassocks of fine black cloth which mingled in it during thebrilliant reception hours. Empty also was the following room, a smallerone reserved to the Palatine Guards, who are recruited among the Romanmiddle class and wear black tunics with gold epaulets and shakoessurmounted by red plumes. Then Pierre and his guide turned into anotherseries of apartments, and again was the first one empty. This was theHall of the Arras, a superb waiting-room with lofty painted ceiling andadmirable Gobelins tapestry designed by Audran and representing themiracles of Jesus. And empty also was the ante-chamber of the NobleGuards which followed, with its wooden stools, its pier table on theright-hand surmounted by a large crucifix standing between two lamps, andits large door opening at the far end into another but smaller room, asort of alcove indeed, where there is an altar at which the Holy Fathersays mass by himself whilst those privileged to be present remainkneeling on the marble slabs of the outer apartment which is resplendentwith the dazzling uniforms of the Guards. And empty likewise was theensuing ante-room of honour, otherwise the grand throne-room, where thePope receives two or three hundred people at a time in public audience. The throne, an arm-chair of elaborate pattern, gilded, and upholsteredwith red velvet, stands under a velvet canopy of the same hue, in frontof the windows. Beside it is the cushion on which the Pope rests his footin order that it may be kissed. Then facing one another, right and leftof the room, there are two pier tables, on one of which is a clock and onthe other a crucifix between lofty candelabra with feet of gilded wood. The wall hangings, of red silk damask with a Louis XIV palm pattern, aretopped by a pompous frieze, framing a ceiling decorated with allegoricalfigures and attributes, and it is only just in front of the throne that aSmyrna carpet covers the magnificent marble pavement. On the days ofprivate audience, when the Pope remains in the little throne-room or attimes in his bed-chamber, the grand throne-room becomes simply theante-room of honour, where high dignitaries of the Church, ambassadors, and great civilian personages, wait their turns. Two /Camerieri/, one inviolet coat, the other of the Cape and the Sword, here do duty, receivingfrom the /bussolanti/ the persons who are to be honoured with audiencesand conducting them to the door of the next room, the secret or privateante-chamber, where they hand them over to the /Camerieri segreti/. 

Signor Squadra who, walking on with slow and silent steps, had not yetonce turned round, paused for a moment on reaching the door of the/anticamera segreta/ so as to give Pierre time to breathe and recoverhimself 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 shouldcondescend to receive them. And so when Signor Squadra made up his mindto admit Pierre, the latter could not restrain a slight nervous shiver asif he were passing into some redoubtable mysterious sphere beyond thelimits of the lower world. In the daytime a Noble Guard stood on sentryduty before the door, but the latter was now free of access, and the roomwithin proved as empty as all the others. It was rather narrow, almostlike a passage, with two windows overlooking the new district of thecastle fields and a third one facing the Piazza of St. Peter's. Near thelast was a door conducting to the little throne-room, and between thisdoor 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 agilded pier table surmounted by a crucifix flanked by a pair of lamps. Ina corner too there was a large clock, loudly ticking in its ebony caseincrusted with brass-work. Still there was nothing to awaken curiosityunder the panelled and gilded ceiling unless it were the wall-hangings ofred damask, on which yellow scutcheons displaying the Keys and the Tiaraalternated with armorial lions, each with a paw resting on a globe. 

Signor Squadra, however, now noticed that Pierre still carried his hat inhis hand, whereas according to etiquette he should have left it in thehall of the /bussolanti/, only cardinals being privileged to carry theirhats with them into the Pope's presence. Accordingly he discreetly tookthe young priest's from him, and deposited it on the pier table toindicate that it must at least remain there. Then, without a word, by asimple bow he gave Pierre to understand that he was about to announce himto his Holiness, and that he must be good enough to wait for a fewminutes in that room. 

On being left to himself Pierre drew a long breath. He was stifling; hisheart was beating as though it would burst. Nevertheless his mindremained clear, and in spite of the semi-obscurity he had been able toform some idea of the famous and magnificent apartments of the Pope, asuite of splendid /salons/ with tapestried or silken walls, gilded orpainted friezes, and frescoed ceilings. By way of furniture, however, there were only pier table, stools, * and thrones. And the lamps and theclocks, and the crucifixes, even the thrones, were all presents broughtfrom the four quarters of the world in the great fervent days of jubilee. There was no sign of comfort, everything was pompous, stiff, cold, andinconvenient. All olden Italy was there, with its perpetual display andlack of intimate, cosy life. It had been necessary to lay a few carpetsover the superb marble slabs which froze one's feet; and some/caloriferes/ had even lately been installed, but it was not thoughtprudent to light them lest the variations of temperature should give thePope a cold. However, that which more particularly struck Pierre now thathe stood there waiting was the extraordinary silence which prevailed allaround, silence so deep that it seemed as if all the dark quiescence ofthat huge, somniferous Vatican were concentrated in that one suite oflifeless, sumptuous rooms, which the motionless flamelets of the lamps asdimly 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 feltastonished. What! had only ten minutes elapsed since he had crossed thethreshold of the bronze doors below? He felt as if he had been walking onfor days and days. Then, desiring to overcome the nervous feeling whichoppressed him--for he ever feared lest his enforced calmness shouldcollapse amidst a flood of tears--he began to walk up and down, passingin front of the clock, glancing at the crucifix on the pier table, andthe globe of the lamp on which had remained the mark of a servant'sgreasy fingers. And the light was so faint and yellow that he feltinclined to turn the lamp up, but did not dare. Then he found himselfwith his brow resting against one of the panes of the window facing thePiazza of St. Peter's, and for a moment he was thunderstruck, for betweenthe imperfectly closed shutters he could see all Rome, as he had seen itone day from the /loggie/ of Raffaelle, and as he had pictured Leo XIIIcontemplating it from the window of his bed-room. However, it was nowRome by night, Rome spreading out into the depths of the gloom, aslimitless as the starry sky. And in that sea of black waves one couldonly with certainty identify the larger thoroughfares which the whitebrightness of electric lights turned, as it were, into Milky Ways. Allthe rest showed but a swarming of little yellow sparks, the crumbs, as itwere, of a half-extinguished heaven swept down upon the earth. Occasionalconstellations of bright stars, tracing mysterious figures, vainlyendeavoured to show forth distinctly, but they were submerged, blottedout by the general chaos which suggested the dust of some old planet thathad crumbled there, losing its splendour and reduced to merephosphorescent sand. And how immense was the blackness thus sprinkledwith light, how huge the mass of obscurity and mystery into which theEternal City with its seven and twenty centuries, its ruins, itsmonuments, its people, its history seemed to have been merged. You couldno longer tell where it began or where it ended, whether it spread to thefarthest recesses of the gloom, or whether it were so reduced that thesun on rising would illumine but a little pile of ashes. 

However, in spite of all Pierre's efforts, his nervous anguish increasedeach moment, even in presence of that ocean of darkness which displayedsuch sovereign quiescence. He drew away from the window and quivered fromhead to foot on hearing a faint footfall and thinking it was that ofSignor Squadra approaching to fetch him. The sound came from an adjacentapartment, the little throne-room, whose door, he now perceived, hadremained ajar. And at last, as he heard nothing further, he yielded tohis feverish impatience and peeped into this room which he found to befairly spacious, again hung with red damask, and containing a gildedarm-chair, covered with red velvet under a canopy of the same material. And again there was the inevitable pier table, with a tall ivorycrucifix, a clock, a pair of lamps, a pair of candelabra, a pair of largevases on pedestals, and two smaller ones of Sevres manufacture decoratedwith the Holy Father's portrait. At the same time, however, the roomdisplayed rather more comfort, for a Smyrna carpet covered the whole ofthe marble floor, while a few arm-chairs stood against the walls, and animitation chimney-piece, draped with damask, served as counterpart to thepier table. As a rule the Pope, whose bed-chamber communicated with thislittle throne-room, received in the latter such persons as he desired tohonour. And Pierre's shiver became more pronounced at the idea that inall likelihood he would merely have the throne-room to cross and that LeoXIII was yonder behind its farther door. Why was he kept waiting, hewondered? He had been told of mysterious audiences granted at a similarhour to personages who had been received in similar silent fashion, greatpersonages whose names were only mentioned in the lowest whispers. Withregard to himself no doubt, it was because he was considered compromisingthat there was a desire to receive him in this manner unknown to thepersonages of the Court, and so as to speak with him at ease. Then, allat once, he understood the cause of the noise he had recently heard, forbeside the lamp on the pier table of the little throne-room he saw a kindof butler's tray containing some soiled plates, knives, forks, andspoons, with a bottle and a glass, which had evidently just been removedfrom a supper table. And he realised that Signor Squadra, having seenthese things in the Pope's room, had brought them there, and had thengone 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 beingbrought to him in that tray, a plate of meat, a plate of vegetables, alittle Bordeaux claret as prescribed by his doctor, and a large allowanceof beef broth of which he was very fond. In the same way as others mightoffer a cup of tea, he was wont to offer cups of broth to the oldcardinals his friends and favourites, quite an invigorating little treatwhich 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/ aday--six shillings and fourpence--were allowed to defray the cost of LeoXIII's table! However, just as that recollection occurred to Pierre, heagain heard a slight noise, this time in his Holiness's bed-chamber, andthereupon, terrified by his indiscretion, he hastened to withdraw fromthe entrance of the throne-room which, lifeless and quiescent though itwas, seemed in his agitation to flare as with sudden fire. 

Then, quivering too violently to be able to remain still, he began towalk up and down the ante-chamber. He remembered that Narcisse had spokento him of that Signor Squadra, his Holiness's cherished valet, whoseimportance and influence were so great. He alone, on reception days, wasable to prevail on the Pope to don a clean cassock if the one he waswearing happened to be soiled by snuff. And though his Holinessstubbornly shut himself up alone in his bed-room every night from aspirit of independence, which some called the anxiety of a miserdetermined to sleep alone with his treasure, Signor Squadra at all eventsoccupied an adjoining chamber, and was ever on the watch, ready torespond to the faintest call. Again, it was he who respectfullyintervened whenever his Holiness sat up too late or worked too long. Buton 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 tofetch a secretary in order that he might detail some memoranda or sketchout an encyclical letter. When the drafting of one of the latterimpassioned him he would have spent days and nights over it, just asformerly, when claiming proficiency in Latin verse, he had often let thedawn surprise him whilst he was polishing a line. But, indeed, he sleptvery little, his brain ever being at work, ever scheming out therealisation of some former ideas. His memory alone seemed to haveslightly weakened during recent times. 

Pierre, as he slowly paced to and fro, gradually became absorbed in histhoughts of that lofty and sovereign personality. From the petty detailsof 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. AndPierre asked himself which of his two hundred and fifty-sevenpredecessors, the long line of saints and criminals, men of mediocrityand men of genius, he most desired to resemble. Was it one of the firsthumble popes, those who followed on during the first three centuries, mere heads of burial guilds, fraternal pastors of the Christiancommunity? Was it Pope Damasus, the first great builder, the man ofletters who took delight in intellectual matters, the ardent believer whois said to have opened the Catacombs to the piety of the faithful? Was itLeo III, who by crowning Charlemagne boldly consummated the rupture withthe schismatic East and conveyed the Empire to the West by theall-powerful will of God and His Church, which thenceforth disposed ofthe crowns of monarchs? Was it the terrible Gregory VII, the purifier ofthe temple, the sovereign of kings; was it Innocent III or Boniface VIII, those masters of souls, nations, and thrones, who, armed with the fierceweapon of excommunication, reigned with such despotism over the terrifiedmiddle ages that Catholicism was never nearer the attainment of its dreamof universal dominion? Was it Urban II or Gregory IX or another of thosepopes in whom flared the red Crusading passion which urged the nations onto the conquest of the unknown and the divine? Was it Alexander III, whodefended the Holy See against the Empire, and at last conquered and sethis foot on the neck of Frederick Barbarossa? Was it, long after thesorrows of Avignon, Julius II, who wore the cuirass and once morestrengthened the political power of the papacy? Was it Leo X, thepompous, glorious patron of the Renascence, of a whole great century ofart, whose mind, however, was possessed of so little penetration andforesight that he looked on Luther as a mere rebellious monk? Was it PiusV, who personified dark and avenging reaction, the fire of the stakesthat punished the heretic world? Was it some other of the popes whoreigned after the Council of Trent with faith absolute, beliefre-established in its full integrity, the Church saved by pride and thestubborn upholding of every dogma? Or was it a pope of the decline, suchas Benedict XIV, the man of vast intelligence, the learned theologianwho, as his hands were tied, and he could not dispose of the kingdoms ofthe 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 thepopes, the most prodigious of all histories, showing fortune in everyguise, the lowest, the most wretched, as well as the loftiest and mostdazzling; whilst an obstinate determination to live enabled the papacy tosurvive everything--conflagrations, massacres, and the downfall of manynations, for always did it remain militant and erect in the persons ofits popes, that most extraordinary of all lines of absolute, conquering, and domineering sovereigns, every one of them--even the puny andhumble--masters of the world, every one of them glorious with theimperishable glory of heaven when they were thus evoked in that ancientVatican, where their spirits assuredly awoke at night and prowled aboutthe endless galleries and spreading halls in that tomb-like silence whosequiver came no doubt from the light touch of their gliding steps over themarble slabs. 

However, Pierre was now thinking that he indeed knew which of the greatpopes Leo XIII most desired to resemble. It was first Gregory the Great, the conqueror and organiser of the early days of Catholic power. He hadcome of ancient Roman stock, and in his heart there was a little of theblood of the emperors. He administered Rome after it had been saved fromthe Goths, cultivated the ecclesiastical domains, and divided earthlywealth into thirds, one for the poor, one for the clergy, and one for theChurch. Then too he was the first to establish the Propaganda, sendinghis priests forth to civilise and pacify the nations, and carrying hisconquests so far as to win Great Britain over to the divine law ofChrist. And the second pope whom Leo XIII took as model was one who hadarisen after a long lapse of centuries, Sixtus V, the pope financier andpolitician, the vine-dresser's son, who, when he had donned the tiara, revealed one of the most extensive and supple minds of a period fertilein great diplomatists. He heaped up treasure and displayed stern avarice, in order that he might ever have in his coffers all the money needful forwar or for peace. He spent years and years in negotiations with kings, never despairing of his own triumph; and never did he display openhostility for his times, but took them as they were and then sought tomodify them in accordance with the interests of the Holy See, showinghimself conciliatory in all things and with every one, already dreamingof an European balance of power which he hoped to control. And withal avery saintly pope, a fervent mystic, yet a pope of the most absolute anddomineering mind blended with a politician ready for whatever coursesmight most conduce to the rule of God's Church on earth. 

And, after all, Pierre amidst his rising enthusiasm, which despite hisefforts at calmness was sweeping away all prudence and doubt, Pierreasked himself why he need question the past. Was not Leo XIII the popewhom he had depicted in his book, the great pontiff, who was desired andexpected? No doubt the portrait which he had sketched was not accurate inevery detail, but surely its main lines must be correct if mankind wereto retain a hope of salvation. Whole pages of that book of his arosebefore him, and he again beheld the Leo XIII that he had portrayed, thewise and conciliatory politician, labouring for the unity of the Churchand so anxious to make it strong and invincible against the day of theinevitable great struggle. He again beheld him freed from the cares ofthe temporal power, elevated, radiant with moral splendour, the onlyauthority left erect above the nations; he beheld him realising whatmortal danger would be incurred if the solution of the social questionwere left to the enemies of Christianity, and therefore resolving tointervene in contemporary quarrels for the defence of the poor and thelowly, even as Jesus had intervened once before. And he again beheld himputting himself on the side of the democracies, accepting the Republic inFrance, leaving the dethroned kings in exile, and verifying theprediction which promised the empire of the world to Rome once more whenthe papacy should have unified belief and have placed itself at the headof the people. The times indeed were near accomplishment, Caesar wasstruck down, the Pope alone remained, and would not the people, the greatsilent multitude, for whom the two powers had so long contended, giveitself to its Father now that it knew him to be both just and charitable, with heart aglow and hand outstretched to welcome all the pennilesstoilers and beggars of the roads! Given the catastrophe which threatenedour rotten modern societies, the frightful misery which ravaged everycity, there was surely no other solution possible: Leo XIII, thepredestined, necessary redeemer, the pastor sent to save the flock fromcoming disaster by re-establishing the true Christian community, theforgotten golden age of primitive Christianity. The reign of justicewould at last begin, all men would be reconciled, there would be but onenation living in peace and obeying the equalising law of work, under thehigh patronage of the Pope, sole bond of charity and love on earth!

And at this thought Pierre was upbuoyed by fiery enthusiasm. At last hewas about to see the Holy Father, empty his heart and open his soul tohim! He had so long and so passionately looked for the advent of thatmoment! To secure it he had fought with all his courage through everrecurring obstacles, and the length and difficulty of the struggle andthe success now at last achieved, increased his feverishness, his desirefor final victory. Yes, yes, he would conquer, he would confound hisenemies. As he had said to Monsignor Fornaro, could the Pope disavow him?Had he not expressed the Holy Father's secret ideas? Perhaps he mighthave done so somewhat prematurely, but was not that a fault to beforgiven? And then too, he remembered his declaration to Monsignor Nani, that he himself would never withdraw and suppress his book, for heneither regretted nor disowned anything that was in it. At this verymoment he again questioned himself, and felt that all his valour anddetermination to defend his book, all his desire to work the triumph ofhis belief, remained intact. Yet his mental perturbation was becominggreat, he had to seek for ideas, wondering how he should enter the Pope'spresence, what he should say, what precise terms he should employ. Something heavy and mysterious which he could hardly account for seemedto weigh him down. At bottom he was weary, already exhausted, only heldup by his dream, his compassion for human misery. However, he would enterin 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 smileon him, and dismiss him with a promise that he would not sign thecondemnation of a work in which he had found the expression of his ownmost cherished thoughts. 

Then, again, such an acute sensation as of fainting came over Pierre thathe went up to the window to press his burning brow against the coldglass. His ears were buzzing, his legs staggering, whilst his brainthrobbed violently. And he was striving to forget his thoughts by gazingupon the black immensity of Rome, longing to be steeped in night himself, total, healing night, the night in which one sleeps on for ever, knowingneither pain nor wretchedness, when all at once he became conscious thatsomebody was standing behind him; and thereupon, with a start, he turnedround. 

And there, indeed, stood Signor Squadra in his black livery. Again hemade one of his customary bows to invite the visitor to follow him, andagain he walked on in front, crossing the little throne-room, and slowlyopening 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 thoseoverwhelming attacks of emotion which madden or paralyse one. He had beentold of women reaching the Pope's presence in a fainting condition, staggering as if intoxicated, while others came with a rush, as thoughupheld and borne along by invisible pinions. And suddenly the anguish ofhis own spell of waiting, his intense feverishness, ceased in a sort ofastonishment, a reaction which rendered him very calm and so restored hisclearness of vision, that he could see everything. As he entered hedistinctly realised the decisive importance of such an audience, he, amere petty priest in presence of the Supreme Pontiff, the Head of theChurch. All his religious and moral life would depend on it; and possiblyit was this sudden thought that thus chilled him on the threshold of theredoubtable sanctuary, which he had approached with such quivering steps, and which he would not have thought to enter otherwise than withdistracted heart and loss of senses, unable to do more than stammer thesimple prayers of childhood. 

Later on, when he sought to classify his recollections he remembered thathis eyes had first lighted on Leo XIII, not, however, to the exclusion ofhis surroundings, but in conjunction with them, that spacious room hungwith yellow damask whose alcove, adorned with fluted marble columns, wasso deep that the bed was quite hidden away in it, as well as otherarticles of furniture, a couch, a wardrobe, and some trunks, those famoustrunks in which the treasure of the Peter's Pence was said to be securelylocked. A sort of Louis XIV writing-desk with ornaments of engraved brassstood face to face with a large gilded and painted Louis XV pier table onwhich a lamp was burning beside a lofty crucifix. The room was virtuallybare, only three arm-chairs and four or five other chairs, upholstered inlight silk, being disposed here and there over the well-worn carpet. Andon one of the arm-chairs sat Leo XIII, near a small table on whichanother lamp with a shade had been placed. Three newspapers, moreover, lay there, two of them French and one Italian, and the last was halfunfolded as if the Pope had momentarily turned from it to stir a glass ofsyrup, standing beside him, with a long silver-gilt spoon. 

In the same way as Pierre saw the Pope's room, he saw his costume, hiscassock of white cloth with white buttons, his white skull-cap, his whitecape and his white sash fringed with gold and broidered at either endwith golden keys. His stockings were white, his slippers were of redvelvet, and these again were broidered with golden keys. What surprisedthe young priest, however, was his Holiness's face and figure, which nowseemed so shrunken that he scarcely recognised them. This was his fourthmeeting 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 soslight and fragile that he could not restrain a feeling of affectionateanxiety. Leo's neck was particularly remarkable, slender beyond belief, suggesting the neck of some little, aged, white bird. And his face, ofthe pallor of alabaster, was characteristically transparent, to such adegree, indeed, that one could see the lamplight through his largecommanding nose, as if the blood had entirely withdrawn from that organ. A mouth of great length, with white bloodless lips, streaked the lowerpart of the papal countenance, and the eyes alone had remained young andhandsome. Superb eyes they were, brilliant like black diamonds, endowedwith sufficient penetration and strength to lay souls open and force themto confess the truth aloud. Some scanty white curls emerged from underthe white skull-cap, thus whitely crowning the thin white face, whoseugliness was softened by all this whiteness, this spiritual whiteness inwhich Leo XIII's flesh seemed as it were but pure lily-white florescence. 

At the first glance, however, Pierre noticed that if Signor Squadra hadkept him waiting, it had not been in order to compel the Holy Father todon a clean cassock, for the one he was wearing was badly soiled bysnuff. A number of brown stains had trickled down the front of thegarment beside the buttons, and just like any good /bourgeois/, hisHoliness had a handkerchief on his knees to wipe himself. Apart from allthis he seemed in good health, having recovered from his recentindisposition as easily as he usually recovered from such passingillnesses, sober, prudent old man that he was, quite free from organicdisease, and simply declining by reason of progressive naturalexhaustion. 

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, hestooped over one of the Pope's feet resting on a cushion in order to kissthe red velvet slipper. And on the Pope's side there was not a word, nota gesture, not a movement. When the young man drew himself up again hefound the two black diamonds, those two eyes which were all brightnessand intelligence, still riveted on him. 

But at last Leo XIII, who had been unwilling to spare the young priestthe humble duty of kissing his foot and who now left him standing, beganto 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 toafford you that satisfaction. "

He spoke in French, somewhat uncertain French, pronounced after theItalian fashion, and so slowly did he articulate each sentence that onecould have written it down like so much dictation. And his voice, asPierre had previously noticed, was strong and nasal, one of those fullvoices which people are surprised to hear coming from debile andapparently bloodless and breathless frames. 

In response to the Holy Father's remark Pierre contented himself withbowing, knowing that respect required him to wait for a direct answerbefore speaking. However, this question promptly came. "You live inParis?" 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, isit not? And how old are you, my son?"

"Thirty-four, Holy Father. "

A short interval followed. Leo XIII had at last lowered his eyes. Withfrail, ivory hand he took up the glass beside him, again stirred thesyrup with the long spoon, and then drank a little of it. And all this hedid gently and slowly, with a prudent, judicious air, as was his wont nodoubt 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. Buta person who is interested in you handed me the volume, begging me toglance 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 coulddetect a protest against the isolation in which he was kept by thosesurrounding him, who, as Monsignor Nani had said, maintained a strictwatch in order that nothing they objected to might reach him. Andthereupon the young priest ventured to say: "I thank your Holiness forhaving done me so much honour. No greater or more desired happiness couldhave befallen me. " He was indeed so happy! On seeing the Pope so calm, sofree from all signs of anger, and on hearing him speak in that way of hisbook, like one well acquainted with it, he imagined that his cause waswon. 

"You are in relations with Monsieur le Vicomte Philibert de la Choue, areyou not, my son?" continued Leo XIII. "I was struck by the resemblancebetween some of your ideas and those of that devoted servant of theChurch, who has in other ways given us previous testimony of his goodfeelings. "

"Yes, indeed, Holy Father, Monsieur de la Choue is kind enough to show mesome affection. We have often talked together, so it is not surprisingthat I should have given expression to some of his most cherished ideas. "

"No doubt, no doubt. For instance, there is that question of theworking-class guilds with which he largely occupies himself--with which, in fact, he occupies himself rather too much. At the time of his lastjourney to Rome he spoke to me of it in the most pressing manner. And inthe same way, quite recently, another of your compatriots, one of thebest and worthiest of men, Monsieur le Baron de Fouras, who brought usthat superb pilgrimage of the St. Peter's Pence Fund, never ceased hisefforts until I consented to receive him, when he spoke to me on the samesubject during nearly an hour. Only it must be said that they do notagree in the matter, for one begs me to do things which the other willnot 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 thePope he would make an attempt to obtain from him a decisive expression ofopinion on the famous question as to whether the working-class guilds orcorporations should be free or obligatory, open or closed. And theunhappy Viscount, kept in Paris by the gout, had written the young priestletter after letter on the subject, whilst his rival the Baron, availinghimself of the opportunity offered by the international pilgrimage, endeavoured to wring from the Pope an approval of his own views, withwhich he would have returned in triumph to France. Pierre conscientiouslydesired to keep his promise, and so he answered: "Your Holiness knowsbetter than any of us in which direction true wisdom lies. Monsieur deFouras is of opinion that salvation, the solution of the labour question, lies simply in the re-establishment of the old free corporations, whilstMonsieur de la Choue desires the corporations to be obligatory, protectedby the state and governed by new regulations. This last conception iscertainly more in agreement with the social ideas now prevalent inFrance. Should your Holiness condescend to express a favourable opinionin that sense, the young French Catholic party would certainly know howto turn it to good result, by producing quite a movement of the workingclasses in favour of the Church. "

In his quiet way Leo XIII responded: "But I cannot. Frenchmen always askthings of me which I cannot, will not do. What I will allow you to say onmy behalf to Monsieur de la Choue is, that though I cannot content him Ihave not contented Monsieur de Fouras. He obtained from me nothing beyondthe 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 thefaith. You must surely understand, however, that among you Frenchmenthere are questions of detail, of mere organisation, so to say, intowhich I cannot possibly enter without imparting to them an importancewhich they do not have, and at the same time greatly discontenting somepeople should I please others. "

As the Pope pronounced these last words he smiled a pale smile, in whichthe shrewd, conciliatory politician, who was determined not to allow hisinfallibility to be compromised in useless and risky ventures, was fullyrevealed. And then he drank a little more syrup and wiped his mouth withhis handkerchief, like a sovereign whose Court day is over and who takeshis ease, having chosen this hour of solitude and silence to chat as longas 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 soanxious to know the fate reserved to my book--as if, indeed, it were hisown--that I should have been very happy to convey to him an expression ofyour Holiness's approval. "

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

"I became acquainted with the Viscount, " continued Pierre, "at theresidence of his Eminence Cardinal Bergerot, another great heart whoseardent charity ought to suffice to restore the faith in France. "

This time the effect was immediate. "Ah! yes, Monsieur le CardinalBergerot!" said Leo XIII. "I read that letter of his which is printed atthe beginning of your book. He was very badly inspired in writing it toyou; and you, my son, acted very culpably on the day you published it. Icannot yet believe that Monsieur le Cardinal Bergerot had read some ofyour pages when he sent you an expression of his complete and fullapproval. I prefer to charge him with ignorance and thoughtlessness. Howcould he approve of your attacks on dogma, your revolutionary theorieswhich tend to the complete destruction of our holy religion? If it be afact that he had read your book, the only excuse he can invoke is suddenand inexplicable aberration. It is true that a very bad spirit prevailsamong a small portion of the French clergy. What are called Gallicanideas are ever sprouting up like noxious weeds; there is a malcontentLiberalism rebellious to our authority which continually hungers for freeexamination and sentimental adventures. "

The Pope grew animated as he spoke. Italian words mingled with hishesitating French, and every now and again his full nasal voice resoundedwith the sonority of a brass instrument. "Monsieur le Cardinal Bergerot, "he continued, "must be given to understand that we shall crush him on theday when we see in him nothing but a rebellious son. He owes the exampleof obedience; we shall acquaint him with our displeasure, and we hopethat he will submit. Humility and charity are great virtues doubtless, and we have always taken pleasure in recognising them in him. But theymust not be the refuge of a rebellious heart, for they are as nothingunless accompanied by obedience--obedience, obedience, the finestadornment of the great saints!"

Pierre listened thunderstruck, overcome. He forgot himself to think ofthe apostle of kindliness and tolerance upon whose head he had drawn thisall-powerful anger. So Don Vigilio had spoken the truth: over and abovehis--Pierre's--head the denunciations of the Bishops of Evreux andPoitiers were about to fall on the man who opposed their Ultramontanepolicy, that worthy and gentle Cardinal Bergerot, whose heart was open toall the woes of the lowly and the poor. This filled the young priest withdespair; he could accept the denunciation of the Bishop of Tarbes actingon behalf of the Fathers of the Grotto, for that only fell on himself, asa reprisal for what he had written about Lourdes; but the underhandwarfare of the others exasperated him, filled him with dolorousindignation. 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 allowedhimself to be deceived by appearances on entering? How could he haveimagined that he was simply in presence of a poor old man, worn out byage, desirous of peace, and ready for every concession? A blast had sweptthrough that sleepy chamber, and all his doubts and his anguish awokeonce more. Ah! that Pope, how thoroughly he answered to all the accountsthat he, Pierre, had heard but had refused to believe; so many people hadtold him in Rome that he would find Leo XIII a man of intellect ratherthan of sentiment, a man of the most unbounded pride, who from his veryyouth had nourished the supreme ambition, to such a point indeed that hehad promised eventual triumph to his relatives in order that they mightmake the necessary sacrifices for him, while since he had occupied thepontifical throne his one will and determination had been to reign, toreign in spite of all, to be the sole absolute and omnipotent master ofthe world! And now here was reality arising with irresistible force andconfirming everything. And yet Pierre struggled, stubbornly clutching athis dream once more. 

"Oh! Holy Father, " said he, "I should be grieved indeed if his Eminenceshould have a moment's worry on account of my unfortunate book. If I beguilty I can answer for my error, but his Eminence only obeyed thedictates of his heart and can only have transgressed by excess of lovefor the disinherited of the world!"

Leo XIII made no reply. He had again raised his superb eyes, those eyesof ardent life, set, as it were, in the motionless countenance of analabaster idol; and once more he was fixedly gazing at the young priest. 

And Pierre, amidst his returning feverishness, seemed to behold himgrowing in power and splendour, whilst behind him arose a vision of theages, a vision of that long line of popes whom the young priest hadpreviously evoked, the saintly and the proud ones, the warriors and theascetics, the theologians and the diplomatists, those who had wornarmour, those who had conquered by the Cross, those who had disposed ofempires as of mere provinces which God had committed to their charge. Andin particular Pierre beheld the great Gregory, the conqueror and founder, and Sixtus V, the negotiator and politician, who had first foreseen theeventual victory of the papacy over all the vanquished monarchies. Ah!what a throng of magnificent princes, of sovereign masters with powerfulbrains and arms, there was behind that pale, motionless, old man! What anaccumulation of inexhaustible determination, stubborn genius, andboundless domination! The whole history of human ambition, the wholeeffort of the ages to subject the nations to the pride of one man, thegreatest force that has ever conquered, exploited, and fashioned mankindin the name of its happiness! And even now, when territorial sovereigntyhad come to an end, how great was the spiritual sovereignty of that paleand slender old man, in whose presence women fainted, as if overcome bythe divine splendour radiating from his person. Not only did all theresounding glories, the masterful triumphs of history spread out behindhim, but heaven opened, the very spheres beyond life shone out in theirdazzling mystery. He--the Pope--stood at the portals of heaven, holdingthe keys and opening those portals to human souls; all the ancientsymbolism was revived, freed at last from the stains of royalty herebelow. 

"Oh! I beg you, Holy Father, " resumed Pierre, "if an example be neededstrike 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 havingbrought condemnation on the innocent. "

Leo XIII still refrained from replying, though he continued to look atthe young priest with burning eyes. And he, Pierre, no longer beheld LeoXIII, the last of a long line of popes, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, theSuccessor of the Prince of the Apostles, the Supreme Pontiff of theUniversal Church, Patriarch of the East, Primate of Italy, Archbishop andMetropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign of the Temporal Domains ofthe Holy Church; he saw the Leo XIII that he had dreamt of, the awaitedsaviour who would dispel the frightful cataclysm in which rotten societywas sinking. He beheld him with his supple, lofty intelligence andfraternal, conciliatory tactics, avoiding friction and labouring to bringabout unity whilst with his heart overflowing with love he went straightto the hearts of the multitude, again giving the best of his blood insign of the new alliance. He raised him aloft as the sole remaining moralauthority, the sole possible bond of charity and peace--as the Father, infact, who alone could stamp out injustice among his children, destroymisery, and re-establish the liberating Law of Work by bringing thenations back to the faith of the primitive Church, the gentleness and thewisdom of the true Christian community. And in the deep silence of thatroom the great figure which he thus set up assumed invincibleall-powerfulness, extraordinary majesty. 

"Oh, I beseech you, Holy Father, listen to me, " he said. "Do not evenstrike me, strike no one, neither a being nor a thing, anything that cansuffer under the sun. Show kindness and indulgence to all, show all thekindness and indulgence which the sight of the world's sufferings musthave set in you!"

And then, seeing that Leo XIII still remained silent and still left himstanding there, he sank down upon his knees, as if felled by the growingemotion which rendered his heart so heavy. And within him there was asort of /debacle/; all his doubts, all his anguish and sadness burstforth in an irresistible stream. There was the memory of the frightfulday 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 hadexperienced since his arrival in Rome, the destruction of his illusions, the wounds dealt to his delicacy, the buffets with which men and thingshad responded to his young enthusiasm; and, lying yet more deeply withinhis heart, there was the sum total of human wretchedness, the thought offamished ones howling for food, of mothers whose breasts were drained andwho sobbed whilst kissing their hungry babes, of fathers without work, who clenched their fists and revolted--indeed, the whole of that hatefulmisery which is as old as mankind itself, which has preyed upon mankindsince its earliest hour, and which he now had everywhere found increasingin horror and havoc, without a gleam of hope that it would ever behealed. And withal, yet more immense and more incurable, he felt withinhim a nameless sorrow to which he could assign no precise cause orname--an universal, an illimitable sorrow with which he melteddespairingly, and which was perhaps the very sorrow of life. 

"O Holy Father!" he exclaimed, "I myself have no existence and my bookhas no existence. I desired, passionately desired to see your Holinessthat I might explain and defend myself. But I no longer know, I can nolonger recall a single one of the things that I wished to say, I can onlyweep, weep the tears which are stifling me. Yes, I am but a poor man, andthe 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 faubourgsof Paris, so wretched and so full of pain; the poor little children thatI have picked out of the snow, the poor little angels who had eatennothing for two days; the women too, consumed by consumption, withoutbread or fire, shivering in filthy hovels; and the men thrown on thestreet by slackness of trade, weary of begging for work as one begs foralms, sinking back into night, drunken with rage and harbouring the soleavenging 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 hadjust killed herself with her five little ones, she lying on a palliassesuckling her last-born, and two little girls, two pretty little blondes, sleeping the last sleep beside her, while the two boys had succumbedfarther away, one of them crouching against a wall, and the other lyingupon 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 sufferand who sob, the humble delegate of the humble ones who die of wantbeneath the hateful harshness, the frightful injustice of our present-daysocial system! And I bring your Holiness their tears, and I lay theirtortures at your Holiness's feet, I raise their cry of woe, like a cryfrom the abyss, that cry which demands justice unless indeed the veryheavens are to fall! Oh! show your loving kindness, Holy Father, showcompassion!"

The young man had stretched out his arms and implored Leo XIII with agesture as of supreme appeal to the divine compassion. Then he continued:"And here, Holy Father, in this splendid and eternal Rome, is not thewant and misery as frightful! During the weeks that I have roamed hitherand thither among the dust of famous ruins, I have never ceased to comein contact with evils which demand cure. Ah! to think of all that iscrumbling, all that is expiring, the agony of so much glory, the fearfulsadness of a world which is dying of exhaustion and hunger! Yonder, underyour Holiness's windows, have I not seen a district of horrors, adistrict of unfinished palaces stricken like rickety children who cannotattain to full growth, palaces which are already in ruins and have becomeplaces of refuge for all the woeful misery of Rome? And here, as inParis, what a suffering multitude, what a shameless exhibition too of thesocial sore, the devouring cancer openly tolerated and displayed in utterheedlessness! There are whole families leading idle and hungry lives inthe splendid sunlight; fathers waiting for work to fall to them fromheaven; sons listlessly spending their days asleep on the dry grass;mothers and daughters, withered before their time, shuffling about inloquacious idleness. O Holy Father, already to-morrow at dawn may yourHoliness open that window yonder and with your benediction awaken thatgreat childish people, which still slumbers in ignorance and poverty! Mayyour Holiness give it the soul it lacks, a soul with the consciousness ofhuman dignity, of the necessary law of work, of free and fraternal liferegulated by justice only! Yes, may your Holiness make a people out ofthat heap of wretches, whose excuse lies in all their bodily sufferingand mental night, who live like the beasts that go by and die, neverknowing nor understanding, yet ever lashed onward with the whip!"

Pierre's sobs were gradually choking him, and it was only the impulse ofhis passion which still enabled him to speak. "And, Holy Father, " hecontinued, "is it not to you that I ought to address myself in the nameof all these wretched ones? Are you not the Father, and is it not beforethe Father that the messenger of the poor and the lowly should kneel as Iam kneeling now? And is it not to the Father that he should bring thehuge burden of their sorrows and ask for pity and help and justice? Yes, particularly for justice! And since you are the Father throw the doorswide open so that all may enter, even the humblest of your children, thefaithful, the chance passers, even the rebellious ones and those who havegone astray but who will perhaps enter and whom you will save from theerrors of abandonment! Be as the house of refuge on the dangerous road, the loving greeter of the wayfarer, the lamp of hospitality which everburns, and is seen afar off and saves one in the storm! And since, OFather, you are power be salvation also! You can do all; you havecenturies of domination behind you; you have nowadays risen to a moralauthority which has rendered you the arbiter of the world; you are therebefore me like the very majesty of the sun which illumines andfructifies! Oh! be the star of kindness and charity, be the redeemer;take in hand once more the purpose of Jesus, which has been perverted bybeing left in the hands of the rich and the powerful who have ended bytransforming the work of the Gospel into the most hateful of allmonuments of pride and tyranny! And since the work has been spoilt, takeit in hand, begin it afresh, place yourself on the side of the littleones, the lowly ones, the poor ones, and bring them back to the peace, the fraternity, and the justice of the original Christian communion. Andsay, O Father, that I have understood you, that I have sincerelyexpressed in this respect your most cherished ideas, the sole livingdesire of your reign! The rest, oh! the rest, my book, myself, whatmatter they! I do not defend myself, I only seek your glory and thehappiness of mankind. Say that from the depths of this Vatican you haveheard the rending of our corrupt modern societies! Say that you havequivered with loving pity, say that you desire to prevent the awfulimpending catastrophe by recalling the Gospel to the hearts of yourchildren who are stricken with madness, and by bringing them back to theage of simplicity and purity when the first Christians lived together ininnocent brotherhood! Yes, it is for that reason, is it not, that youhave placed yourself, Father, on the side of the poor, and for thatreason I am here and entreat you for pity and kindness and justice withmy whole soul!"

Then the young man gave way beneath his emotion, and fell all of a heapupon the floor amidst a rush of sobs--loud, endless sobs, which flowedforth in billows, coming as it were not only from himself but from allthe wretched, from the whole world in whose veins sorrow coursed mingledwith 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 toothers with an effort, had twice raised one of his pallid hands tointerrupt the young priest. Then, gradually overcome by astonishment, touched by emotion himself, he had allowed him to continue, to go on tothe end of his outburst. A little blood even had suffused the snowywhiteness of the Pontiff's face whilst his eyes shone out yet morebrilliantly. 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, hebecame anxious and leant forward: "Calm yourself, my son, raiseyourself, " he said. 

But the sobs still continued, still flowed forth, all reason and respectbeing swept away amidst that distracted plaint of a wounded soul, thatmoan 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 theyoung man to sit down. 

Pierre rose with pain, and at once seated himself in order that he mightnot fall. He brushed his hair back from his forehead, and wiped hisscalding tears away with his hands, unable to understand what had justhappened, but striving to regain his self-possession. 

"You appeal to the Holy Father, " said Leo XIII. "Ah! rest assured thathis 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 mostdangerous 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. Thesubject 'New Rome' is such a beautiful one and impassions me so much! andcertainly there is a book to be written under that title, but in a verydifferent spirit to yours. You think that you have understood me, my son, that you have so penetrated yourself with my writings and actions thatyou simply express my most cherished ideas. But no, no, you have notunderstood me, and that is why I desired to see you, explain things toyou, and convince you. "

It was now Pierre who sat listening, mute and motionless. Yet he had onlycome thither to defend himself; for three months past he had beenfeverishly desiring this interview, preparing his arguments and feelingconfident of victory; and now although he heard his book spoken of asdangerous and culpable he did not protest, did not reply with any one ofthose good reasons which he had deemed so irresistible. But the fact wasthat 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 XIIIwith an air of impatient irritation. "It is incredible what trouble Ihave to make myself understood, in France especially! Take the temporalpower for instance; how can you have fancied that the Holy See would everenter into any compromise on that question? Such language is unworthy ofa priest, it is the chimerical dream of one who is ignorant of theconditions in which the papacy has hitherto lived and in which it muststill live if it does not desire to disappear. Cannot you see thesophistry of your argument that the Church becomes the loftier the moreit frees itself from the cares of terrestrial sovereignty? A purelyspiritual royalty, a sway of charity and love, indeed, 'tis a fineimaginative idea! But who will ensure us respect? Who will grant us thealms of a stone on which to rest our head if we are ever driven forth andforced to roam the highways? Who will guarantee our independence when weare 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 theindestructible, eternal soil on which the Church is built, so that anyrelinquishment would mean the downfall of the Holy Catholic Apostolic andRoman Church. And, moreover, we could not relinquish it; we are bound byour oath to God and man. "

He paused for a moment to allow Pierre to answer him. But the latter tohis stupefaction could say nothing, for he perceived that this pope spokeas he was bound to speak. All the heavy mysterious things which hadweighed the young priest down whilst he was waiting in the ante-room, nowbecame more and more clearly defined. They were, indeed, the things whichhe had seen and learnt since his arrival in Rome, the disillusions, therebuffs which he had experienced, all the many points of differencebetween existing reality and imagination, whereby his dream of a returnto primitive Christianity was already half shattered. And in particularhe 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 itspurple, he had realised that he was an imbecile with his idea of a purelyspiritual pope. He had that day fled from the furious shouts of thepilgrims acclaiming the Pope-King. He had only accepted the necessity formoney, that last form of servitude still binding the Pope to earth. Butall had crumbled afterwards, when he had beheld the real Rome, theancient city of pride and domination where the papacy can never becomplete 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 timewould even arrive when her concessions would cease, in presence of theimpossibility of going any further without committing suicide. If his, Pierre's, dream of a New Rome were ever to be realised, it would only befaraway from ancient Rome. Only in some distant region could the newChristianity arise, for Catholicism was bound to die on the spot when thelast of the popes, riveted to that land of ruins, should disappearbeneath the falling dome of St. Peter's, which would fall as surely asthe temple of Jupiter had fallen! And, as for that pope of the presentday, though he might have no kingdom, though age might have made him weakand fragile, though his bloodless pallor might be that of some ancientidol of wax, he none the less flared with the red passion for universalsovereignty, he was none the less the stubborn scion of his ancestry, thePontifex Maximus, the Caesar Imperator in whose veins flowed the blood ofAugustus, master of the world. 

"You must be fully aware, " resumed Leo XIII, "of the ardent desire forunity which has always possessed us. We were very happy on the day whenwe unified the rite, by imposing the Roman rite throughout the wholeCatholic world. This is one of our most cherished victories, for it cando much to uphold our authority. And I hope that our efforts in the Eastwill end by bringing our dear brethren of the dissident communions backto us, in the same way as I do not despair of convincing the Anglicansects, without speaking of the other so-called Protestant sects who willbe compelled to return to the bosom of the only Church, the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church, when the times predicted by the Christ shallbe accomplished. But a thing which you did not say in your book is thatthe Church can relinquish nothing whatever of dogma. On the contrary, youseem to fancy that an agreement might be effected, concessions made oneither side, and that, my son, is a culpable thought, such language as apriest cannot use without being guilty of a crime. No, the truth isabsolute, not a stone of the edifice shall be changed. Oh! in matters ofform, we will do whatever may be asked. We are ready to adopt the mostconciliatory courses if it be only a question of turning certaindifficulties and weighing expressions in order to facilitate agreement. . . . Again, there is the part we have taken in contemporary socialism, andhere too it is necessary that we should be understood. Those whom youhave so well called the disinherited of the world, are certainly theobject of our solicitude. If socialism be simply a desire for justice, and a constant determination to come to the help of the weak and thesuffering, who can claim to give more thought to the matter and work withmore energy than ourselves? Has not the Church always been the mother ofthe afflicted, the helper and benefactress of the poor? We are for allreasonable progress, we admit all new social forms which will promotepeace and fraternity. . . . Only we can but condemn that socialism whichbegins by driving away God as a means of ensuring the happiness ofmankind. Therein lies simple savagery, an abominable relapse into theprimitive state in which there can only be catastrophe, conflagration, and massacre. And that again is a point on which you have not laidsufficient stress, for you have not shown in your book that there can beno progress outside the pale of the Church, that she is really the onlyinitiatory and guiding power to whom one may surrender oneself withoutfear. Indeed, and in this again you have sinned, it seemed to me as ifyou set God on one side, as if for you religion lay solely in a certainbent of the soul, a florescence of love and charity, which sufficed oneto work one's salvation. But that is execrable heresy. God is everpresent, master of souls and bodies; and religion remains the bond, thelaw, the very governing power of mankind, apart from which there can onlybe 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 meanto link the fate of religion to that of any form of government, howeveraugust and ancient the latter may be. Dynasties may have done their time, but God is eternal. Kings may perish, but God lives! And, moreover, thereis nothing anti-Christian in the republican form of government; indeed, on the contrary, it would seem like an awakening of that Christiancommonwealth to which you have referred in some really charming pages. The worst is that liberty at once becomes license, and that our desirefor conciliation is often very badly requited. . . . But ah! what awicked book you have written, my son, --with the best intentions, I amwilling to believe, --and how your silence shows that you are beginning torecognise the disastrous consequences of your error. "

Pierre still remained silent, overcome, feeling as if his arguments wouldfall against some deaf, blind, and impenetrable rock, which it wasuseless to assail since nothing could enter it. And only one thing nowpreoccupied him; he wondered how it was that a man of such intelligenceand such ambition had not formed a more distinct and exact idea of themodern world. He could divine that the Pope possessed much informationand carried the map of Christendom with many of the needs, deeds, andhopes of the nations, in his mind amidst his complicated diplomaticenterprises; but at the same time what gaps there were in his knowledge!The truth, no doubt, was that his personal acquaintance with the worldwas 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 hadonly mingled with the dawning life of young Italy. And for eighteen yearsnow he had been shut up in the Vatican, isolated from the rest of mankindand communicating with the nations solely through his /entourage/, whichwas often most unintelligent, most mendacious, and most treacherous. Moreover, he was an Italian priest, a superstitious and despotic HighPontiff, bound by tradition, subjected to the influences of raceenvironment, pecuniary considerations, and political necessities, not tospeak of his great pride, the conviction that he ought to be implicitlyobeyed in all things as the one sole legitimate power upon earth. Thereinlay fatal causes of mental deformity, of errors and gaps in hisextraordinary brain, though the latter certainly possessed many admirablequalities, quickness of comprehension and patient stubbornness of willand strength to draw conclusions and act. Of all his powers, however, that of intuition was certainly the most wonderful, for was it not thisalone which, owing to his voluntary imprisonment, enabled him to divinethe vast evolution of humanity at the present day? He was thus keenlyconscious of the dangers surrounding him, of the rising tide of democracyand the boundless ocean of science which threatened to submerge thelittle islet where the dome of St. Peter's yet triumphed. And the objectof all his policy, of all his labour, was to conquer so that he mightreign. If he desired the unity of the Church it was in order that thelatter might become strong and inexpugnable in the contest which heforesaw. If he preached conciliation, granting concessions in matters ofform, tolerating audacious actions on the part of American bishops, itwas because he deeply and secretly feared the dislocation of the Church, some sudden schism which might hasten disaster. And this fear explainedhis returning affection for the people, the concern which he displayedrespecting socialism, and the Christian solution which he offered to thewoes of earthly life. As Caesar was stricken low, was not the longcontest for possession of the people over, and would not the people, thegreat silent multitude, speak out, and give itself to him, the Pope? Hehad begun experiments with France, forsaking the lost cause of themonarchy and recognising the Republic which he hoped might prove strongand victorious, for in spite of everything France remained the eldestdaughter of the Church, the only Catholic nation which yet possessedsufficient strength to restore the temporal power at some propitiousmoment. And briefly Leo's desire was to reign. To reign by the support ofFrance since it seemed impossible to do so by the support of Germany! Toreign by the support of the people, since the people was now becoming themaster, the bestower of thrones! To reign by means even of an ItalianRepublic, if only that Republic could wrest Rome from the House of Savoyand restore her to him, a federal Republic which would make him Presidentof the United States of Italy pending the time when he should bePresident of the United States of Europe! To reign in spite of everybodyand everything, such was his ambition, to reign over the world, even asAugustus had reigned, Augustus whose devouring blood alone upheld thisexpiring old man, yet so stubbornly clinging to power!

"And another crime of yours, my son, " resumed Leo XIII, "is that you havedared to ask for a new religion. That is impious, blasphemous, sacrilegious. There is but one religion in the world, our Holy CatholicApostolic and Roman Religion, apart from which there can be but darknessand damnation. I quite understand that what you mean to imply is a returnto early Christianity. But the error of so-called Protestantism, soculpable and so deplorable in its consequences, never had any otherpretext. As soon as one departs from the strict observance of dogma andabsolute respect for tradition one sinks into the most frightfulprecipices. . . . Ah! schism, schism, my son, is a crime beyondforgiveness, an assassination of the true God, a device of the loathsomeBeast of Temptation which Hell sends into the world to work the ruin ofthe faithful! If your book contained nothing beyond those words 'a newreligion, ' it would be necessary to destroy and burn it like so muchpoison fatal in its effects upon the human soul. "

He continued at length on this subject, while Pierre recalled what DonVigilio had told him of those all-powerful Jesuits who at the Vatican aselsewhere remained in the background, secretly but none the lessdecisively governing the Church. Was it true then that this pope, whoseopportunist tendencies were so freely displayed, was one of them, a meredocile instrument in their hands, though he fancied himself penetratedwith the doctrines of St. Thomas Aquinas? In any case, like them hecompounded with the century, made approaches to the world, and waswilling to flatter it in order that he might possess it. Never before hadPierre so cruelly realised that the Church was now so reduced that shecould only live by dint of concessions and diplomacy. And he could atlast distinctly picture that Roman clergy which at first is so difficultof comprehension to a French priest, that Government of the Church, represented by the pope, the cardinals, and the prelates, whom the Deityhas appointed to govern and administer His mundane possessions--mankindand the earth. They begin by setting that very Deity on one side, in thedepths of the tabernacle, and impose whatever dogmas they please as somany essential truths. That the Deity exists is evident, since theygovern in His name which is sufficient for everything. And being byvirtue of their charge the masters, if they consent to sign covenants, Concordats, it is only as matters of form; they do not observe them, andnever yield to anything but force, always reserving the principle oftheir absolute sovereignty which must some day finally triumph. Pendingthat day's arrival, they act as diplomatists, slowly carrying on theirwork of conquest as the Deity's functionaries; and religion is but thepublic homage which they pay to the Deity, and which they organise withall the pomp and magnificence that is likely to influence the multitude. Their only object is to enrapture and conquer mankind in order that thelatter may submit to the rule of the Deity, that is the rule ofthemselves, since they are the Deity's visible representatives, expresslydelegated to govern the world. In a word, they straightway descend fromRoman law, they are still but the offspring of the old pagan soul ofRome, and if they have lasted until now and if they rely on lasting forever, until the awaited hour when the empire of the world shall berestored to them, it is because they are the direct heirs of thepurple-robed Caesars, the uninterrupted and living progeny of the bloodof Augustus. 

And thereupon Pierre felt ashamed of his tears. Ah! those poor nerves ofhis, 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 hissoul in utter nakedness. And so uselessly too, in that room where nothingsimilar had ever been said before, and in presence of that Pontiff-Kingwho could not understand him. His plan of the popes reigning by means ofthe poor and lowly now horrified him. His idea of the papacy going to thepeople, at last rid of its former masters, seemed to him a suggestionworthy of a wolf, for if the papacy should go to the people it would onlybe to prey upon it as the others had done. And really he, Pierre, musthave been mad when he had imagined that a Roman prelate, a cardinal, apope, was capable of admitting a return to the Christian commonwealth, afresh florescence of primitive Christianity to pacify the aged nationswhom hatred consumed. Such a conception indeed was beyond thecomprehension of men who for centuries had regarded themselves as mastersof the world, so heedless and disdainful of the lowly and the suffering, that they had at last become altogether incapable of either love orcharity. *

 * 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 onLourdes which shows such a thoroughly bad spirit? Lourdes, my son, hasrendered great services to religion. To the persons who have come andtold me of the touching miracles which are witnessed at the Grotto almostdaily, I have often expressed my desire to see those miracles confirmed, proved by the most rigorous scientific tests. And, indeed, according towhat I have read, I do not think that the most evilly disposed minds canentertain any further doubt on the matter, for the miracles /are/ provedscientifically in the most irrefutable manner. Science, my son, must beGod's servant. It can do nothing against Him, it is only by His gracethat it arrives at the truth. All the solutions which people nowadayspretend to discover and which seemingly destroy dogma will some day berecognised as false, for God's truth will remain victorious when thetimes shall be accomplished. That is a very simple certainty, known evento little children, and it would suffice for the peace and salvation ofmankind, if mankind would content itself with it. And be convinced, myson, that faith and reason are not incompatible. Have we not got St. Thomas who foresaw everything, explained everything, regulatedeverything? Your faith has been shaken by the onslaught of the spirit ofexamination, you have known trouble and anguish which Heaven has beenpleased to spare our priests in this land of ancient belief, this city ofRome which the blood of so many martyrs has sanctified. However, we haveno fear of the spirit of examination, study St. Thomas, read himthoroughly and your faith will return, definitive and triumphant, firmerthan ever. "

These remarks caused Pierre as much dismay as if fragments of thecelestial vault were raining on his head. O God of truth, miracles--themiracles of Lourdes!--proved scientifically, faith in the dogmascompatible with reason, and the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas sufficientto instil certainty into the minds of this present generation! How couldone 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 isthe more to be condemned as it offers every fascination of style, everyperversion of generous fancy. Briefly it is such a book that a priest, ifhe conceived it in an hour of error, can have no other duty than that ofburning it in public with the very hand which traced the pages of errorand scandal. "

All at once Pierre rose up erect. He was about to exclaim: "'Tis true, Ihad lost my faith, but I thought I had found it again in the compassionwhich the woes of the world set in my heart. You were my last hope, theawaited saviour. But, behold, that again is a dream, you cannot take thework of Jesus in hand once more and pacify mankind so as to avert thefrightful fratricidal war which is preparing. You cannot leave yourthrone and come along the roads with the poor and the humble to carry outthe supreme work of fraternity. Well, it is all over with you, yourVatican and your St. Peter's. All is falling before the onslaught of therising multitude and growing science. You no longer exist, there are onlyruins and remnants left here. "

However, he did not speak those words. He simply bowed and said: "HolyFather, I make my submission and reprobate my book. " And as he thusreplied his voice trembled with disgust, and his open hands made agesture of surrender as though he were yielding up his soul. The words hehad chosen were precisely those of the required formula: /Auctorlaudabiliter se subjecit et opus reprobavit/. "The author has laudablymade his submission and reprobated his work. " No error could have beenconfessed, no hope could have accomplished self-destruction with loftierdespair, more sovereign grandeur. But what frightful irony: that bookwhich he had sworn never to withdraw, and for whose triumph he had foughtso passionately, and which he himself now denied and suppressed, notbecause he deemed it guilty, but because he had just realised that it wasas 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 hadfound there neither the Deity nor the priest that he had desired for thehappiness of mankind, why should he obstinately cling to the illusion ofan awakening which was impossible! 'Twere better to fling his book on theground like a dead leaf, better to deny it, better to cut it away like adead limb that could serve no purpose whatever!

Somewhat surprised by such a prompt victory Leo XIII raised a slightexclamation 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, whocarefully prepared each of his audiences, deciding beforehand what wordshe would say, what gestures even he would make, unbent somewhat anddisplayed real /bonhomie/. Unable to understand, mistaking the realmotives of this rebellious priest's submission, he tasted positivedelight in having so easily reduced him to silence, the more so as reporthad stated the young man to be a terrible revolutionary. And thus hisHoliness felt quite proud of such a conversion. "Moreover, my son, " hesaid, "I did not expect less of one of your distinguished mind. There canbe 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 wasstirring the last spoonful of syrup before drinking it. And Pierre wasamazed 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 thezenith, he had again sunk to the level of the soil in all humanmediocrity. Again did Pierre find him puny and fragile, with the slenderneck of a little sick bird, and all those marks of senile ugliness whichrendered him so exacting with regard to his portraits, whether they wereoil paintings or photographs, gold medals, or marble busts, for of oneand 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 loftyimage 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 wereaffectionate pity for such white old age, deep admiration for thestubborn power of life which had found a refuge in those dark black eyes, and respectful deference, such as became a worker, for that large brainwhich harboured such vast projects and overflowed with such innumerableideas and actions. 

The audience was over, and the young man bowed low: "I thank yourHoliness for having deigned to give me such a fatherly reception, " hesaid. 

However, Leo XIII detained him for a moment longer, speaking to him ofFrance and expressing his sincere desire to see her prosperous, calm, andstrong for the greater advantage of the Church. And Pierre, during thatlast moment, had a singular vision, a strange haunting fancy. As he gazedat the Holy Father's ivory brow and thought of his great age and of hisliability to be carried off by the slightest chill, he involuntarilyrecalled the scene instinct with a fierce grandeur which is witnessedeach time a pope dies. He recalled Pius IX, Giovanni Mastai, two hoursafter death, his face covered by a white linen cloth, while thepontifical family surrounded him in dismay; and then Cardinal Pecci, the/Camerlingo/, approaching the bed, drawing aside the veil and dealingthree taps with his silver hammer on the forehead of the deceased, repeating at each tap the call, "Giovanni! Giovanni! Giovanni!" And asthe 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 ViaGiulia 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 coveredby a white linen cloth and his corpse surrounded by his prelates in thatvery room. And he saw the /Camerlingo/ approach, draw the veil aside andtap the ivory forehead, each time repeating the call: "Gioachino!Gioachino! Gioachino!" Then, as the corpse did not answer, he waited fora few seconds and turned and said "The Pope is dead!" Did Leo XIIIremember how he had thrice tapped the forehead of Pius IX, and did heever feel on the brow an icy dread of the silver hammer with which he hadarmed his own /Camerlingo/, the man whom he knew to be his implacableadversary, Cardinal Boccanera?

"Go in peace, my son, " at last said his Holiness by way of partingbenediction. "Your transgression will be forgiven you since you haveconfessed and testify your horror for it. "

With distressful spirit, accepting humiliation as well-deservedchastisement for his chimerical fancies, Pierre retired, steppingbackwards according to the customary ceremonial. He made three deep bowsand crossed the threshold without turning, followed by the black eyes ofLeo XIII, which never left him. Still he saw the Pope stretch his armtowards the table to take up the newspaper which he had been readingprior to the audience, for Leo retained a great fancy for newspapers, andwas very inquisitive as to news, though in the isolation in which helived he frequently made mistakes respecting the relative importance ofarticles. And once more the chamber sank into deep quietude, whilst thetwo lamps continued to diffuse a soft and steady light. 

In the centre of the /anticamera segreta/ Signor Squadra stood waitingblack and motionless. And on noticing that Pierre in his flurry forgot totake his hat from the pier table, he himself discreetly fetched it andhanded it to the young priest with a silent bow. Then without anyappearance of haste, he walked ahead to conduct the visitor back to theSala Clementina. The endless promenade through the interminableante-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 lowamidst a yet deeper silence than before. The wilderness seemed also tohave grown larger as the night advanced, casting its gloom over the fewarticles of furniture scattered under the lofty gilded ceilings, thethrones, the stools, the pier tables, the crucifixes, and the candelabrawhich recurred in each succeeding room. And at last the Sala Clementinawhich the Swiss Guards had just quitted was reached again, and SignorSquadra, who hitherto had not turned his head, thereupon drew asidewithout word or gesture, and, saluting Pierre with a last bow, allowedhim to pass on. Then he himself disappeared. 

And Pierre descended the two flights of the monumental staircase wherethe gas jets in their globes of ground glass glimmered like night lightsamidst a wondrously heavy silence now that the footsteps of the sentriesno longer resounded on the landings. And he crossed the Court of St. Damasus, empty and lifeless in the pale light of the lamps above thesteps, 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 thebronze door which a porter slowly shut behind him. And with what arumble, what a fierce roar did the hard metal close upon all that waswithin; all the accumulated darkness and silence; the dead, motionlesscenturies perpetuated by tradition; the indestructible idols, the dogmas, bound round for preservation like mummies; every chain which may weigh onone or hamper one, the whole apparatus of bondage and sovereigndomination, with whose formidable clang all the dark, deserted hallsre-echoed. 

Once more the young man found himself alone on the gloomy expanse of thePiazza of St. Peter's. Not a single belated pedestrian was to be seen. There was only the lofty, livid, ghost-like obelisk, emerging between itsfour candelabra, from the mosaic pavement of red and serpentine porphyry. The facade of the Basilica also showed vaguely, pale as a vision, whilstfrom it on either side like a pair of giant arms stretched the quadruplecolonnade, a thicket of stone, steeped in obscurity. The dome was but ahuge roundness scarcely discernible against the moonless sky; and onlythe jets of the fountains, which could at last be detected rising likeslim phantoms ever on the move, lent a voice to the silence, the endlessmurmur of a plaint of sorrow coming one knew not whence. Ah! how greatwas the melancholy grandeur of that slumber, that famous square, theVatican and St. Peter's, thus seen by night when wrapped in silence anddarkness! But suddenly the clock struck ten with so slow and loud a chimethat never, so it seemed, had more solemn and decisive an hour rung outamidst blacker and more unfathomable gloom. All Pierre's poor weary framequivered at the sound as he stood motionless in the centre of theexpanse. What! had he spent barely three-quarters of an hour, chatting upyonder with that white old man who had just wrenched all his soul awayfrom him! Yes, it was the final wrench; his last belief had been tornfrom his bleeding heart and brain. The supreme experiment had been made, a world had collapsed within him. And all at once he thought of MonsignorNani, and reflected that he alone had been right. He, Pierre, had beentold that in any case he would end by doing what Monsignor Nani mightdesire, and he was now stupefied to find that he had done so. 

But sudden despair seized upon him, such atrocious distress of spiritthat, from the depths of the abyss of darkness where he stood, he raisedhis quivering arms into space and spoke aloud: "No, no, Thou art nothere, O God of life and love, O God of Salvation! But come, appear sinceThy children are perishing because they know neither who Thou art, norwhere to find Thee amidst the Infinite of the worlds!"

Above the vast square spread the vast sky of dark-blue velvet, the silentdisturbing Infinite, where the constellations palpitated. Over the roofsof the Vatican, Charles's Wain seemed yet more tilted, its golden wheelsstraying from the right path, its golden shaft upreared in the air;whilst yonder, over Rome towards the Via Giulia, Orion was about todisappear and already showed but one of the three golden stars whichbedecked his belt. 

XV

IT was nearly daybreak when Pierre fell asleep, exhausted by emotion andhot with fever. And at nine o'clock, when he had risen and breakfasted, he at once wished to go down into Cardinal Boccanera's rooms where thebodies of Dario and Benedetta had been laid in state in order that themembers of the family, its friends and clients, might bring them theirtears and prayers. 

Whilst he breakfasted, Victorine who, showing an active bravery amidsther despair, had not been to bed at all, told him of what had taken placein the house during the night and early morning. Donna Serafina, prudethat she was, had again made an attempt to have the bodies separated; butthis had proved an impossibility, as /rigor mortis/ had set in, and topart the lovers it would have been necessary to break their limbs. Moreover, the Cardinal, who had interposed once before, almost quarrelledwith his sister on the subject, unwilling as he was that any one shoulddisturb the lovers' last slumber, their union of eternity. Beneath hispriestly garb there coursed the blood of his race, a pride in thepassions of former times; and he remarked that if the family counted twopopes among its forerunners, it had also been rendered illustrious bygreat captains and ardent lovers. Never would he allow any one to touchthose two children, whose dolorous lives had been so pure and whom thegrave alone had united. He was the master in his house, and they shouldbe sewn together in the same shroud, and nailed together in the samecoffin. Then too the religious service should take place at theneighbouring church of San Carlo, of which he was Cardinal-priest andwhere again he was the master. And if needful he would address himself tothe Pope. And such being his sovereign will, so authoritativelyexpressed, everybody in the house had to bow submissively. 

Donna Serafina at once occupied herself with the laying-out. According tothe Roman custom the servants were present, and Victorine as the oldestand most appreciated of them, assisted the relatives. All that could bedone in the first instance was to envelop both corpses in Benedetta'sunbound hair, thick and odorous hair, which spread out into a royalmantle; and they were then laid together in one shroud of white silk, fastened about their necks in such wise that they formed but one being indeath. And again the Cardinal imperatively ordered that they should bebrought into his apartments and placed on a state bed in the centre ofthe throne-room, so that a supreme homage might be rendered to them as tothe last scions of the name, the two tragic lovers with whom the onceresounding glory of the Boccaneras was about to return to earth. Thestory which had been arranged was already circulating through Rome; folksrelated how Dario had been carried off in a few hours by infectiousfever, and how Benedetta, maddened by grief, had expired whilst claspinghim in her arms to bid him a last farewell; and there was talk too of theroyal honours which the bodies were to receive, the superb funeralnuptials which were to be accorded them as they lay clasped on their bedof eternal rest. All Rome, quite overcome by this tragic story of loveand death, would talk of nothing else for several weeks. 

Pierre would have started for France that same night, eager as he was toquit the city of disaster where he had lost the last shreds of his faith, but he desired to attend the obsequies, and therefore postponed hisdeparture until the following evening. And thus he would spend one moreday in that old crumbling palace, near the corpse of that unhappy youngwoman to whom he had been so much attached and for whom he would try tofind some prayers in the depths of his empty and lacerated heart. 

When he reached the threshold of the Cardinal's reception-rooms, hesuddenly remembered his first visit to them. They still presented thesame aspect of ancient princely pomp falling into decay and dust. Thedoors of the three large ante-rooms were wide open, and the roomsthemselves were at that early hour still empty. In the first one, theservants' anteroom, there was nobody but Giacomo who stood motionless inhis black livery in front of the old red hat hanging under the/baldacchino/ where spiders spun their webs between the crumblingtassels. In the second room, which the secretary formerly had occupied, Abbe Paparelli, the train-bearer, was softly walking up and down whilstwaiting for visitors; and with his conquering humility, his all-powerfulobsequiousness, he had never before so closely resembled an old maid, whitened and wrinkled by excess of devout observances. Finally, in thethird ante-room, the /anticamera nobile/, where the red cap lay on acredence facing the large imperious portrait of the Cardinal inceremonial costume, there was Don Vigilio who had left his littlework-table to station himself at the door of the throne-room and therebow to those who crossed the threshold. And on that gloomy winter morningthe rooms appeared more mournful and dilapidated than ever, the hangingsfrayed and ragged, the few articles of furniture covered with dust, theold wood-work crumbling beneath the continuous onslaught of worms, andthe ceilings alone retaining their pompous show of gilding and painting. 

However, Pierre, to whom Abbe Paparelli addressed a profound bow, inwhich one divined the irony of a sort of dismissal given to one who wasvanquished, felt more impressed by the mournful grandeur which thosethree dilapidated rooms presented that day, conducting as they did to theold throne-room, now a chamber of death, where the two last children ofthe house slept their last sleep. What a superb and sorrowful /gala/ ofdeath! Every door wide open and all the emptiness of those over-spaciousrooms, void of the throngs of ancient days and leading to the supremeaffliction--the end of a race! The Cardinal had shut himself up in hislittle work-room where he received the relatives and intimates whodesired to present their condolences to him, whilst Donna Serafina hadchosen an adjoining apartment to await her lady friends who would come inprocession until evening. And Pierre, informed of the ceremonial byVictorine, had in the first place to enter the throne-room, greeted as hepassed by a deep bow from Don Vigilio who, pale and silent, did not seemto recognise him. 

A surprise awaited the young priest. He had expected such alying-in-state as is seen in France and elsewhere, all windows closed soas to steep the room in night, and hundreds of candles burning round a/catafalco/, whilst from ceiling to floor the walls were hung with blackdrapery. He had been told that the bodies would lie in the throne-roombecause the antique chapel on the ground floor of the palazzo had beenshut up for half a century and was in no condition to be used, whilst theCardinal's little private chapel was altogether too small for any suchceremony. And thus it had been necessary to improvise an altar in thethrone-room, an altar at which masses had been said ever since dawn. Masses and other religious services were moreover to be celebrated allday long in the private chapel; and two additional altars had even beenset up, one in a small room adjoining the /anticamera nobile/ and theother in a sort of alcove communicating with the second anteroom: and inthis wise priests, Franciscans, and members of other Orders bound by thevow of poverty, would simultaneously and without intermission celebratethe divine sacrifice on those four altars. The Cardinal, indeed, haddesired that the Divine Blood should flow without pause under his rooffor the redemption of those two dear souls which had flown away together. And thus in that mourning mansion, through those funeral halls the bellsscarcely stopped tinkling for the elevation of the host, whilst thequivering murmur of Latin words ever continued, and consecrated waferswere continually broken and chalices drained, in such wise that theDivine Presence could not for a moment quit the heavy atmosphere allredolent of death. 

On the other hand, however, Pierre, to his great astonishment, found thethrone-room much as it had been on the day of his first visit. Thecurtains of the four large windows had not even been drawn, and the grey, cold, subdued light of the gloomy winter morning freely entered. Underthe ceiling of carved and gilded wood-work there were the customary redwall-hangings of /brocatelle/, worn away by long usage; and there was theold throne with the arm-chair turned to the wall, uselessly waiting for avisit from the Pope which would never more come. The principal changes inthe aspect of the room were that its seats and tables had been removed, and that, in addition to the improvised altar arranged beside the throne, it now contained the state bed on which lay the bodies of Benedetta andDario, amidst a profusion of flowers. The bed stood in the centre of theroom on a low platform, and at its head were two lighted candles, one oneither side. There was nothing else, nothing but that wealth of flowers, such a harvest of white roses that one wondered in what fairy garden theyhad been culled, sheaves of them on the bed, sheaves of them topplingfrom the bed, sheaves of them covering the step of the platform, andfalling from that step on to the magnificent marble paving of the room. 

Pierre drew near to the bed, his heart faint with emotion. Those taperswhose little yellow flamelets scarcely showed in the pale daylight, thatcontinuous low murmur of the mass being said at the altar, thatpenetrating perfume of roses which rendered the atmosphere so heavy, filled the antiquated, dusty room with a spirit of infinite woe, alamentation of boundless mourning. And there was not a gesture, not aword spoken, save by the priest officiating at the altar, nothing but anoccasional faint sound of stifled sobbing among the few persons present. Servants of the house constantly relieved one another, four alwaysstanding erect and motionless at the head of the bed, like faithful, familiar guards. From time to time Consistorial-Advocate Morano who, since early morning had been attending to everything, crossed the roomwith a silent step and the air of a man in a hurry. And at the edge ofthe platform all who entered, knelt, prayed, and wept. Pierre perceivedthree ladies there, their faces hidden by their handkerchiefs; and therewas also an old priest who trembled with grief and hung his head in suchwise that his face could not be distinguished. However, the young man wasmost moved by the sight of a poorly clad girl, whom he took for aservant, and whom sorrow had utterly prostrated on the marble slabs. 

Then in his turn he knelt down, and with the professional murmur of thelips sought to repeat the Latin prayers which, as a priest, he had sooften said at the bedside of the departed. But his growing emotionconfused his memory, and he became wrapt in contemplation of the loverswhom his eyes were unable to quit. Under the wealth of flowers whichcovered them the clasped bodies could scarcely be distinguished, but thetwo heads emerged from the silken shroud, and lying there on the samecushion, with their hair mingling, they were still beautiful, beautifulas with satisfied passion. Benedetta had kept her divinely gay, loving, and faithful face for eternity, transported with rapture at havingrendered up her last breath in a kiss of love; whilst Dario retained amore dolorous expression amidst his final joy. And their eyes were stillwide open, gazing at one another with a persistent and caressingsweetness which nothing would ever more disturb. 

Oh! God, was it true that yonder lay that Benedetta whom he, Pierre, hadloved with such pure, brotherly affection? He was stirred to the verydepths of his soul by the recollection of the delightful hours which hehad spent with her. She had been so beautiful, so sensible, yet so fullof passion! And he had indulged in so beautiful a dream, that ofanimating with his own liberating fraternal feelings that admirablecreature with soul of fire and indolent air, in whom he had pictured allancient Rome, and whom he would have liked to awaken and win over to theItaly of to-morrow. He had dreamt of enlarging her brain and heart byfilling her with love for the lowly and the poor, with all present-daycompassion for things and beings. How he would now have smiled at such adream had not his tears been flowing! Yet how charming she had shownherself in striving to content him despite the invincible obstacles ofrace, education, and environment. She had been a docile pupil, but wasincapable of any real progress. One day she had certainly seemed to drawnearer to him, as though her own sufferings had opened her soul to everycharity; but the illusion of happiness had come back, and then she hadlost all understanding of the woes of others, and had gone off in theegotism of her own hope and joy. Did that mean then that this Roman racemust finish in that fashion, beautiful as it still often is, and fondlyadored but so closed to all love for others, to those laws of charity andjustice which, by regulating labour, can henceforth alone save this worldof ours?

Then there came another great sorrow to Pierre which left him stammering, unable to speak any precise prayer. He thought of the overwhelmingreassertion of Nature's powers which had attended the death of those twopoor children. Was it not awful? To have taken that vow to the Virgin, tohave endured torment throughout life, and to end by plunging into death, on the loved one's neck, distracted by vain regret and eager forself-bestowal! The brutal fact of impending separation had sufficed forBenedetta to realise how she had duped herself, and to revert to theuniversal instinct of love. And therein, again once more, was the Churchvanquished; therein again appeared the great god Pan, mating the sexesand scattering life around! If in the days of the Renascence the Churchdid not fall beneath the assault of the Venuses and Hercules then exhumedfrom the old soil of Rome, the struggle at all events continued asbitterly as ever; and at each and every hour new nations, overflowingwith sap, hungering for life, and warring against a religion which wasnothing more than an appetite for death, threatened to sweep away thatold Holy Apostolic Roman and Catholic edifice whose walls were alreadytottering on all sides. 

And at that moment Pierre felt that the death of that adorable Benedettawas for him the supreme disaster. He was still looking at her and tearswere scorching his eyes. She was carrying off his chimera. This time'twas really the end. Rome the Catholic and the Princely was dead, lyingthere like marble on that funeral bed. She had been unable to go to thehumble, the suffering ones of the world, and had just expired amidst theimpotent cry of her egotistical passion when it was too late either tolove or to create. Never more would children be born of her, the oldRoman house was henceforth empty, sterile, beyond possibility ofawakening. Pierre whose soul mourned such a splendid dream, was sogrieved at seeing her thus motionless and frigid, that he felt himselffainting. He feared lest he might fall upon the step beside the bed, andso struggled to his feet and drew aside. 

Then, as he sought refuge in a window recess in order that he might tryto recover self-possession, he was astonished to perceive Victorineseated there on a bench which the hangings half concealed. She had comethither by Donna Serafina's orders, and sat watching her two dearchildren as she called them, whilst keeping an eye upon all who came inand went out. And, on seeing the young priest so pale and nearlyswooning, she at once made room for him to sit down beside her. "Ah!" hemurmured after drawing a long breath, "may they at least have the joy ofbeing together elsewhere, of living a new life in another world. "

Victorine, however, shrugged her shoulders, and in an equally low voiceresponded, "Oh! live again, Monsieur l'Abbe, why? When one's dead thebest is to remain so and to sleep. Those poor children had enoughtorments on earth, one mustn't wish that they should begin againelsewhere. "

This naive yet deep remark on the part of an ignorant unbelieving womansent a shudder through Pierre's very bones. To think that his own teethhad chattered with fear at night time at the sudden thought ofannihilation. He deemed her heroic at remaining so undisturbed by anyideas of eternity and the infinite. And she, as she felt he wasquivering, went on: "What can you suppose there should be after death?We've deserved a right to sleep, and nothing to my thinking can be moredesirable and consoling. "

"But those two did not live, " murmured Pierre, "so why not allow oneselfthe joy of believing that they now live elsewhere, recompensed for alltheir torments?"

Victorine, however, again shook her head; "No, no, " she replied. "Ah! Iwas quite right in saying that my poor Benedetta did wrong in torturingherself with all those superstitious ideas of hers when she was really sofond of her lover. Yes, happiness is rarely found, and how one regretshaving missed it when it's too late to turn back! That's the whole storyof those poor little ones. It's too late for them, they are dead. " Thenin her turn she broke down and began to sob. "Poor little ones! poorlittle ones! Look how white they are, and think what they will be whenonly the bones of their heads lie side by side on the cushion, and onlythe bones of their arms still clasp one another. Ah! may they sleep, maythey sleep; at least they know nothing and feel nothing now. "

A long interval of silence followed. Pierre, amidst the quiver of his owndoubts, the anxious desire which in common with most men he felt for anew life beyond the grave, gazed at this woman who did not find prieststo her fancy, and who retained all her Beauceronne frankness of speech, with the tranquil, contented air of one who has ever done her duty in herhumble station as a servant, lost though she had been for five and twentyyears in a land of wolves, whose language she had not even been able tolearn. Ah! yes, tortured as the young man was by his doubts, he wouldhave liked to be as she was, a well-balanced, healthy, ignorant creaturewho was quite content with what the world offered, and who, when she hadaccomplished her daily task, went fully satisfied to bed, careless as towhether she might never wake again!

However, as Pierre's eyes once more sought the state bed, he suddenlyrecognised the old priest, who was kneeling on the step of the platform, and whose features he had hitherto been unable to distinguish. "Isn'tthat Abbe Pisoni, the priest of Santa Brigida, where I sometimes saidmass?" he inquired. "The poor old man, how he weeps!"

In her quiet yet desolate voice Victorine replied, "He has good reason toweep. He did a fine thing when he took it into his head to marry my poorBenedetta to Count Prada. All those abominations would never havehappened if the poor child had been given her Dario at once. But in thisidiotic city they are all mad with their politics; and that old priest, who is none the less a very worthy man, thought he had accomplished areal miracle and saved the world by marrying the Pope and the King as hesaid with a soft laugh, poor old /savant/ that he is, who for his parthas never been in love with anything but old stones--you know, all thatantiquated rubbish of theirs of a hundred thousand years ago. And now, you see, he can't keep from weeping. The other one too came not twentyminutes ago, Father Lorenza, the Jesuit who became the Contessina'sconfessor after Abbe Pisoni, and who undid what the other had done. Yes, a handsome man he is, but a fine bungler all the same, a perfect killjoywith all the crafty hindrances which he brought into that divorce affair. I wish you had been here to see what a big sign of the cross he madeafter he had knelt down. He didn't cry, he didn't: he seemed to be sayingthat as things had ended so badly it was evident that God had withdrawnfrom all share in the business. So much the worse for the dead!"

Victorine spoke gently and without a pause, as it relieved her, to emptyher heart after the terrible hours of bustle and suffocation which shehad spent since the previous day. "And that one yonder, " she resumed in alower voice, "don't you recognise her?"

She glanced towards the poorly clad girl whom Pierre had taken for aservant, and whom intensity of grief had prostrated beside the bed. Witha gesture of awful suffering this girl had just thrown back her head, ahead of extraordinary beauty, enveloped by superb black hair. 

"La Pierina!" said Pierre. "Ah! poor girl. "

Victorine made a gesture of compassion and tolerance. 

"What would you have?" said she, "I let her come up. I don't know how sheheard of the trouble, but it's true that she is always prowling round thehouse. She sent and asked me to come down to her, and you should haveheard her sob and entreat me to let her see her Prince once more! Well, she does no harm to anybody there on the floor, looking at them both withher beautiful loving eyes full of tears. She's been there for half anhour already, and I had made up my mind to turn her out if she didn'tbehave properly. But since she's so quiet and doesn't even move, she maywell stop and fill her heart with the sight of them for her whole lifelong. "

It was really sublime to see that ignorant, passionate, beautiful Pierinathus overwhelmed below the nuptial couch on which the lovers slept forall eternity. She had sunk down on her heels, her arms hanging heavilybeside her, and her hands open. And with raised face, motionless as in anecstasy of suffering, she did not take her eyes from that adorable andtragic pair. Never had human face displayed such beauty, such a dazzlingsplendour of suffering and love; never had there been such a portrayal ofancient Grief, not however cold like marble but quivering with life. Whatwas she thinking of, what were her sufferings, as she thus fixedly gazedat her Prince now and for ever locked in her rival's arms? Was it somejealousy which could have no end that chilled the blood of her veins? Orwas it mere suffering at having lost him, at realising that she waslooking at him for the last time, without thought of hatred for thatother woman who vainly sought to warm him with her arms as icy cold ashis own? There was still a soft gleam in the poor girl's blurred eyes, and her lips were still lips of love though curved in bitterness bygrief. She found the lovers so pure and beautiful as they lay thereamidst that profusion of flowers! And beautiful herself, beautiful like aqueen, ignorant of her own charms, she remained there breathless, ahumble servant, a loving slave as it were, whose heart had been wrenchedaway and carried off by her dying master. 

People were now constantly entering the room, slowly approaching withmournful faces, then kneeling and praying for a few minutes, andafterwards retiring with the same mute, desolate mien. A pang came toPierre's heart when he saw Dario's mother, the ever beautiful Flavia, enter, accompanied by her husband, the handsome Jules Laporte, thatex-sergeant of the Swiss Guard whom she had turned into a MarquisMontefiori. Warned of the tragedy directly it had happened, she hadalready come to the mansion on the previous evening; but now she returnedin grand ceremony and full mourning, looking superb in her black garmentswhich were well suited to her massive, Juno-like style of beauty. Whenshe had approached the bed with a queenly step, she remained for a momentstanding with two tears at the edges of her eyelids, tears which did notfall. Then, at the moment of kneeling, she made sure that Jules wasbeside her, and glanced at him as if to order him to kneel as well. Theyboth sank down beside the platform and remained in prayer for the properinterval, she very dignified in her grief and he even surpassing her, with the perfect sorrow-stricken bearing of a man who knew how to conducthimself in every circumstance of life, even the gravest. And afterwardsthey rose together, and slowly betook themselves to the entrance of theprivate apartments where the Cardinal and Donna Serafina were receivingtheir relatives and friends. 

Five ladies then came in one after the other, while two Capuchins and theSpanish ambassador to the Holy See went off. And Victorine, who for a fewminutes had remained silent, suddenly resumed. "Ah! there's the littlePrincess, she's much afflicted too, and, no wonder, she was so fond ofour Benedetta. "

Pierre himself had just noticed Celia coming in. She also had attiredherself in full mourning for this abominable visit of farewell. Behindher was a maid, who carried on either arm a huge sheaf of white roses. 

"The dear girl!" murmured Victorine, "she wanted her wedding with herAttilio to take place on the same day as that of the poor lovers who liethere. And they, alas! have forestalled her, their wedding's over; therethey sleep in their bridal bed. "

Celia had at once crossed herself and knelt down beside the bed, but itwas evident that she was not praying. She was indeed looking at thelovers with desolate stupefaction at finding them so white and cold witha beauty as of marble. What! had a few hours sufficed, had life departed, would those lips never more exchange a kiss! She could again see them atthe ball of that other night, so resplendent and triumphant with theirliving love. And a feeling of furious protest rose from her young heart, so open to life, so eager for joy and sunlight, so angry with the hatefulidiocy of death. And her anger and affright and grief, as she thus foundherself face to face with the annihilation which chills every passion, could be read on her ingenuous, candid, lily-like face. She herself stoodon the threshold of a life of passion of which she yet knew nothing, andbehold! on that very threshold she encountered the corpses of thosedearly loved ones, the loss of whom racked her soul with grief. 

She gently closed her eyes and tried to pray, whilst big tears fell fromunder her lowered eyelids. Some time went by amidst the quiveringsilence, which only the murmur of the mass near by disturbed. At last sherose and took the sheaves of flowers from her maid; and standing on theplatform she hesitated for a moment, then placed the roses to the rightand left of the cushion on which the lovers' heads were resting, as ifshe wished to crown them with those blossoms, perfume their young browswith that sweet and powerful aroma. Then, though her hands remained emptyshe did not retire, but remained there leaning over the dead ones, trembling and seeking what she might yet say to them, what she mightleave them of herself for ever more. An inspiration came to her, and shestooped forward, and with her whole, deep, loving soul set a long, longkiss on the brow of either spouse. 

"Ah! the dear girl!" said Victorine, whose tears were again flowing. "Yousaw that she kissed them, and nobody had yet thought of that, not eventhe poor young Prince's mother. Ah! the dear little heart, she surelythought of her Attilio. "

However, as Celia turned to descend from the platform she perceived LaPierina, whose figure was still thrown back in an attitude of mute anddolorous adoration. And she recognised the girl and melted with pity onseeing such a fit of sobbing come over her that her whole body, hergoddess-like hips and bosom, shook as with frightful anguish. That agonyof love quite upset the little Princess, and she could be heard murmuringin a tone of infinite compassion, "Calm yourself, my dear, calm yourself. Be reasonable, my dear, I beg you. "

Then as La Pierina, thunderstruck at thus being pitied and succoured, began to sob yet more loudly so as to create quite a stir in the room, Celia raised her and held her up with both arms, for fear lest she shouldfall again. And she led her away in a sisterly clasp, like a sister ofaffection and despair, lavishing the most gentle, consoling words uponher as they went. 

"Follow them, go and see what becomes of them, " Victorine said to Pierre. "I do not want to stir from here, it quiets me to watch over my two poorchildren. "

A Capuchin was just beginning a fresh mass at the improvised altar, andthe low Latin psalmody went on again, while in the adjoiningante-chamber, where another mass was being celebrated, a bell was heardtinkling for the elevation of the host. The perfume of the flowers wasbecoming more violent and oppressive amidst the motionless and mournfulatmosphere of the spacious throne-room. The four servants standing at thehead of the bed, as for a /gala/ reception, did not stir, and theprocession of visitors ever continued, men and women entering in silence, suffocating there for a moment, and then withdrawing, carrying away withthem the never-to-be-forgotten vision of the two tragic lovers sleepingtheir eternal sleep. 

Pierre joined Celia and La Pierina in the /anticamera nobile/, wherestood Don Vigilio. The few seats belonging to the throne-room had therebeen placed in a corner, and the little Princess had just compelled thework-girl to sit down in an arm-chair, in order that she might recoverself-possession. Celia was in ecstasy before her, enraptured at findingher so beautiful, more beautiful than any other, as she said. Then shespoke of the two dead ones, who also had seemed to her very beautiful, endowed with an extraordinary beauty, at once superb and sweet; anddespite all her tears, she still remained in a transport of admiration. On speaking with La Pierina, Pierre learnt that her brother Tito was atthe hospital in great danger from the effects of a terrible knife thrustdealt him in the side; and since the beginning of the winter, said thegirl, the misery in the district of the castle fields had becomefrightful. It was a source of great suffering to every one, and thosewhom death carried off had reason to rejoice. 

Celia, however, with a gesture of invincible hopefulness, brushed allidea of suffering, even of death, aside. "No, no, we must live, " shesaid. "And beauty is sufficient for life. Come, my dear, do not remainhere, do not weep any more; live for the delight of being beautiful. "

Then she led La Pierina away, and Pierre remained seated in one of thearm-chairs, overcome by such sorrow and weariness that he would haveliked to remain there for ever. Don Vigilio was still bowing to eachfresh visitor that arrived. A severe attack of fever had come on himduring the night, and he was shivering from it, with his face veryyellow, and his eyes ablaze and haggard. He constantly glanced at Pierre, as if anxious to speak to him, but his dread lest he should be seen byAbbe Paparelli, who stood in the next ante-room, the door of which waswide open, doubtless restrained him, for he did not cease to watch thetrain-bearer. At last the latter was compelled to absent himself for amoment, and the secretary thereupon approached the young Frenchman. 

"You saw his Holiness last night, " he said; and as Pierre gazed at him instupefaction he added: "Oh! everything gets known, I told you so before. Well, and you purely and simply withdrew your book, did you not?" Theyoung priest's increasing stupor was sufficient answer, and withoutleaving him time to reply, Don Vigilio went on: "I suspected it, but Iwished to make certain. Ah! that's just the way they work! Do you believeme now, have you realised that they stifle those whom they don't poison?"

He was no doubt referring to the Jesuits. However, after glancing intothe adjoining room to make sure that Abbe Paparelli had not returnedthither, he resumed: "And what has Monsignor Nani just told you?"

"But I have not yet seen Monsignor Nani, " was Pierre's reply. 

"Oh! I thought you had. He passed through before you arrived. If you didnot see him in the throne-room he must have gone to pay his respects toDonna Serafina and his Eminence. However, he will certainly pass this wayagain; you will see him by and by. " Then with the bitterness of one whowas weak, ever terror-smitten and vanquished, Don Vigilio added: "I toldyou that you would end by doing what Monsignor Nani desired. "

With these words, fancying that he heard the light footfall of AbbePaparelli, he hastily returned to his place and bowed to two old ladieswho just then walked in. And Pierre, still seated, overcome, his eyeswearily closing, at last saw the figure of Nani arise before him in allits reality so typical of sovereign intelligence and address. Heremembered what Don Vigilio, on the famous night of his revelations, hadtold him of this man who was far too shrewd to have labelled himself, soto say, with an unpopular robe, and who, withal, was a charming prelatewith thorough knowledge of the world, acquired by long experience atdifferent nunciatures and at the Holy Office, mixed up in everything, informed with regard to everything, one of the heads, one of the chiefminds in fact of that modern black army, which by dint of Opportunismhopes to bring this century back to the Church. And all at once, fullenlightenment fell on Pierre, he realised by what supple, clever strategythat man had led him to the act which he desired of him, the pure andsimple withdrawal of his book, accomplished with every appearance of freewill. First there had been great annoyance on Nani's part on learningthat the book was being prosecuted, for he feared lest its excitableauthor might be prompted to some dangerous revolt; then plans had at oncebeen formed, information had been collected concerning this young priestwho seemed so capable of schism, he had been urged to come to Rome, invited to stay in an ancient mansion whose very walls would chill andenlighten him. And afterwards had come the ever recurring obstacles, thesystem of prolonging his sojourn in Rome by preventing him from seeingthe Pope, but promising him the much-desired interview when the propertime should come, that is after he had been sent hither and thither andbrought into collision with one and all. And finally, when every one andeverything had shaken, wearied, and disgusted him, and he was restoredonce more to his old doubts, there had come the audience for which he hadundergone all this preparation, that visit to the Pope which was destinedto shatter whatever remained to him of his dream. Pierre could pictureNani smiling at him and speaking to him, declaring that the repeateddelays were a favour of Providence, which would enable him to visit Rome, study and understand things, reflect, and avoid blunders. How delicateand how profound had been the prelate's diplomacy in thus crushing hisfeelings beneath his reason, appealing to his intelligence to suppresshis work without any scandalous struggle as soon as his knowledge of thereal Rome should have shown him how supremely ridiculous it was to dreamof a new one!

At that moment Pierre perceived Nani in person just coming from thethrone-room, and did not feel the irritation and rancour which he hadanticipated. On the contrary he was glad when the prelate, in his turnseeing him, drew near and held out his hand. Nani, however, did not wearhis wonted smile, but looked very grave, quite grief-stricken. "Ah! mydear son, " he said, "what a frightful catastrophe! I have just left hisEminence, he is in tears. It is horrible, horrible!"

He seated himself on one of the chairs, inviting the young priest, whohad risen, to do the same; and for a moment he remained silent, wearywith emotion no doubt, and needing a brief rest to free himself of theweight of thoughts which visibly darkened his usually bright face. Then, with a gesture, he strove to dismiss that gloom, and recover his amiablecordiality. "Well, my dear son, " he began, "you saw his Holiness?"

"Yes, Monseigneur, yesterday evening; and I thank you for your greatkindness in satisfying my desire. "

Nani looked at him fixedly, and his invincible smile again returned tohis lips. "You thank me. . . . I can well see that you behaved sensiblyand laid your full submission at his Holiness's feet. I was certain ofit, I did not expect less of your fine intelligence. But, all the same, you render me very happy, for I am delighted to find that I was notmistaken concerning you. " And then, setting aside his reserve, theprelate went on: "I never discussed things with you. What would have beenthe good of it, since facts were there to convince you? And now that youhave withdrawn your book a discussion would be still more futile. However, just reflect that if it were possible for you to bring theChurch back to her early period, to that Christian community which youhave sketched so delightfully, she could only again follow the sameevolutions as those in which God the first time guided her; so that, atthe end of a similar number of centuries, she would find herself exactlyin the position which she occupies to-day. No, what God has done has beenwell done, the Church such as she is must govern the world, such as itis; it is for her alone to know how she will end by firmly establishingher reign here below. And this is why your attack upon the temporal powerwas an unpardonable fault, a crime even, for by dispossessing the papacyof her domains you hand her over to the mercy of the nations. Your newreligion is but the final downfall of all religion, moral anarchy, theliberty of schism, in a word, the destruction of the divine edifice, thatancient Catholicism which has shown such prodigious wisdom and solidity, which has sufficed for the salvation of mankind till now, and will alonebe able to save it to-morrow and always. "

Pierre felt that Nani was sincere, pious even, and really unshakable inhis faith, loving the Church like a grateful son, and convinced that shewas the only social organisation which could render mankind happy. And ifhe were bent on governing the world, it was doubtless for the pleasure ofgoverning, but also in the conviction that no one could do so better thanhimself. 

"Oh! certainly, " said he, "methods are open to discussion. I desire themto be as affable and humane as possible, as conciliatory as can be withthis present century, which seems to be escaping us, precisely becausethere is a misunderstanding between us. But we shall bring it back, I amsure of it. And that is why, my dear son, I am so pleased to see youreturn to the fold, thinking as we think, and ready to battle on ourside, is that not so?"

In Nani's words the young priest once more found the arguments of LeoXIII. Desiring to avoid a direct reply, for although he now felt no angerthe wrenching away of his dream had left him a smarting wound, he bowed, and replied slowly in order to conceal the bitter tremble of his voice:"I repeat, Monseigneur, that I deeply thank you for having amputated myvain illusions with the skill of an accomplished surgeon. A little later, when I shall have ceased to suffer, I shall think of you with eternalgratitude. "

Monsignor Nani still looked at him with a smile. He fully understood thatthis young priest would remain on one side, that as an element ofstrength he was lost to the Church. What would he do now? Somethingfoolish no doubt. However, the prelate had to content himself with havinghelped him to repair his first folly; he could not foresee the future. And he gracefully waved his hand as if to say that sufficient unto theday was the evil thereof. 

"Will you allow me to conclude, my dear son?" he at last exclaimed. "Besensible, your happiness as a priest and a man lies in humility. You willbe terribly unhappy if you use the great intelligence which God has givenyou against Him. "

Then with another gesture he dismissed this affair, which was all over, and with which he need busy himself no more. And thereupon the otheraffair came back to make him gloomy, that other affair which also wasdrawing to a close, but so tragically, with those two poor childrenslumbering in the adjoining room. "Ah!" he resumed, "that poor Princessand that poor Cardinal quite upset my heart! Never did catastrophe fallso cruelly on a house. No, no, it is indeed too much, misfortune goes toofar--it revolts one's soul!"

Just as he finished a sound of voices came from the second ante-room, andPierre was thunderstruck to see Cardinal Sanguinetti go by, escorted withthe greatest obsequiousness by Abbe Paparelli. 

"If your most Reverend Eminence will have the extreme kindness to followme, " the train-bearer was saying, "I will conduct your most ReverendEminence myself. "

"Yes, " replied Sanguinetti, "I arrived yesterday evening from Frascati, and when I heard the sad news, I at once desired to express my sorrow andoffer consolation. "

"Your Eminence will perhaps condescend to remain for a moment near thebodies. I will afterwards escort your Eminence to the privateapartments. "

"Yes, by all means. I desire every one to know how greatly I participatein the sorrow which has fallen on this illustrious house. "

Then Sanguinetti entered the throne-room, leaving Pierre quite aghast athis quiet audacity. The young priest certainly did not accuse him ofdirect complicity with Santobono, he did not even dare to measure how farhis moral complicity might go. But on seeing him pass by like that, hisbrow so lofty, his speech so clear, he had suddenly felt convinced thathe knew the truth. How or through whom, he could not have told; butdoubtless crimes become known in those shady spheres by those whoseinterest it is to know of them. And Pierre remained quite chilled by thehaughty fashion in which that man presented himself, perhaps to stiflesuspicion and certainly to accomplish an act of good policy by giving hisrival a public mark of esteem and affection. 

"The Cardinal! Here!" Pierre murmured despite himself. 

Nani, who followed the young man's thoughts in his childish eyes, inwhich all could be read, pretended to mistake the sense of hisexclamation. "Yes, " said he, "I learnt that the Cardinal returned to Romeyesterday evening. He did not wish to remain away any longer; the HolyFather being so much better that he might perhaps have need of him. "

Although these words were spoken with an air of perfect innocence, Pierrewas not for a moment deceived by them. And having in his turn glanced atthe prelate, he was convinced that the latter also knew the truth. Then, all at once, the whole affair appeared to him in its intricacy, in theferocity which fate had imparted to it. Nani, an old intimate of thePalazzo Boccanera, was not heartless, he had surely loved Benedetta withaffection, charmed by so much grace and beauty. One could thus explainthe victorious manner in which he had at last caused her marriage to beannulled. But if Don Vigilio were to be believed, that divorce, obtainedby pecuniary outlay, and under pressure of the most notorious influences, was simply a scandal which he, Nani, had in the first instance spun out, and then precipitated towards a resounding finish with the sole object ofdiscrediting the Cardinal and destroying his chances of the tiara on theeve of the Conclave which everybody thought imminent. It seemed certain, too, that the Cardinal, uncompromising as he was, could not be thecandidate of Nani, who was so desirous of universal agreement, and so thelatter's long labour in that house, whilst conducing to the happiness ofthe Contessina, had been designed to frustrate Donna Serafina andCardinal Pio in their burning ambition, that third triumphant elevationto the papacy which they sought to secure for their ancient family. However, if Nani had always desired to baulk this ambition, and had evenat one moment placed his hopes in Sanguinetti and fought for him, he hadnever imagined that Boccanera's foes would go to the point of crime, tosuch an abomination as poison which missed its mark and killed theinnocent. No, no, as he himself said, that was too much, and made one'ssoul rebel. He employed more gentle weapons; such brutality filled himwith indignation; and his face, so pinky and carefully tended, still worethe grave expression of his revolt in presence of the tearful Cardinaland those poor lovers stricken in his stead. 

Believing that Sanguinetti was still the prelate's secret candidate, Pierre was worried to know how far their moral complicity in this balefulaffair might go. So he resumed the conversation by saying: "It isasserted that his Holiness is on bad terms with his Eminence CardinalSanguinetti. Of course the reigning pope cannot look on the future popewith a very kindly eye. "

At this, Nani for a moment became quite gay in all frankness. "Oh, " saidhe, "the Cardinal has quarrelled and made things up with the Vaticanthree or four times already. And, in any event, the Holy Father has nomotive for posthumous jealousy; he knows very well that he can give hisEminence a good greeting. " Then, regretting that he had thus expressed acertainty, he added: "I am joking, his Eminence is altogether worthy ofthe high fortune which perhaps awaits him. "

Pierre knew what to think however; Sanguinetti was certainly Nani'scandidate no longer. It was doubtless considered that he had used himselfup too much by his impatient ambition, and was too dangerous by reason ofthe equivocal alliances which in his feverishness he had concluded withevery party, even that of patriotic young Italy. And thus the situationbecame clearer. Cardinals Sanguinetti and Boccanera devoured andsuppressed one another; the first, ever intriguing, accepting everycompromise, dreaming of winning Rome back by electoral methods; and theother, erect and motionless in his stern maintenance of the past, excommunicating the century, and awaiting from God alone the miraclewhich would save the Church. And, indeed, why not leave the two theories, thus placed face to face, to destroy one another, including all theextreme, disquieting views which they respectively embodied? If Boccanerahad escaped the poison, he had none the less become an impossiblecandidate, killed by all the stories which had set Rome buzzing; while ifSanguinetti could say that he was rid of a rival, he had at the same timedealt a mortal blow to his own candidature, by displaying such passionfor power, and such unscrupulousness with regard to the methods heemployed, as to be a danger for every one. Monsignor Nani was visiblydelighted with this result; neither candidate was left, it was like thelegendary story of the two wolves who fought and devoured one another socompletely that nothing of either of them was found left, not even theirtails! And in the depths of the prelate's pale eyes, in the whole of hisdiscreet person, there remained nothing but redoubtable mystery: themystery of the yet unknown, but definitively selected candidate who wouldbe patronised by the all-powerful army of which he was one of the mostskilful leaders. A man like him always had a solution ready. Who, then, who would be the next pope?

However, he now rose and cordially took leave of the young priest. "Idoubt if I shall see you again, my dear son, " he said; "I wish you a goodjourney. "

Still he did not go off, but continued to look at Pierre with hispenetrating eyes, and finally made him sit down again and did the samehimself. "I feel sure, " he said, "that you will go to pay your respectsto Cardinal Bergerot as soon as you have returned to France. Kindly tellhim that I respectfully desired to be reminded to him. I knew him alittle at the time when he came here for his hat. He is one of the greatluminaries of the French clergy. Ah! a man of such intelligence wouldonly work for a good understanding in our holy Church. Unfortunately Ifear that race and environment have instilled prejudices into him, for hedoes not always help us. "

Pierre, who was surprised to hear Nani speak of the Cardinal for thefirst time at this moment of farewell, listened with curiosity. Then inall frankness he replied: "Yes, his Eminence has very decided ideas aboutour old Church of France. For instance, he professes perfect horror ofthe Jesuits. "

With a light exclamation Nani stopped the young man. And he wore the mostsincerely, frankly astonished air that could be imagined. "What! horrorof the Jesuits! In what way can the Jesuits disquiet him? The Jesuits, there are none, that's all over! Have you seen any in Rome? Have theytroubled you in any way, those poor Jesuits who haven't even a stone oftheir own left here on which to lay their heads? No, no, that bogeymustn't be brought up again, it's childish. "

Pierre in his turn looked at him, marvelling at his perfect ease, hisquiet courage in dealing with this burning subject. He did not avert hiseyes, but displayed an open face like a book of truth. "Ah!" hecontinued, "if by Jesuits you mean the sensible priests who, instead ofentering into sterile and dangerous struggles with modern society, seekby human methods to bring it back to the Church, why, then of course weare all of us more or less Jesuits, for it would be madness not to takeinto account the times in which one lives. And besides, I won't haggleover words; they are of no consequence! Jesuits, well, yes, if you like, Jesuits!" He was again smiling with that shrewd smile of his in whichthere was so much raillery and so much intelligence. "Well, when you seeCardinal Bergerot tell him that it is unreasonable to track the Jesuitsand treat them as enemies of the nation. The contrary is the truth. TheJesuits are for France, because they are for wealth, strength, andcourage. France is the only great Catholic country which has yet remainederect and sovereign, the only one on which the papacy can some day lean. Thus the Holy Father, after momentarily dreaming of obtaining supportfrom victorious Germany, has allied himself with France, the vanquished, because he has understood that apart from France there can be nosalvation for the Church. And in this he has only followed the policy ofthe Jesuits, those frightful Jesuits, whom your Parisians execrate. Andtell Cardinal Bergerot also that it would be grand of him to work forpacification by making people understand how wrong it is for yourRepublic to help the Holy Father so little in his conciliatory efforts. It pretends to regard him as an element in the world's affairs that maybe neglected; and that is dangerous, for although he may seem to have nopolitical means of action he remains an immense moral force, and can atany moment raise consciences in rebellion and provoke a religiousagitation of the most far-reaching consequences. It is still he whodisposes of the nations, since he disposes of their souls, and theRepublic acts most inconsiderately, from the standpoint of its owninterests, in showing that it no longer even suspects it. And tell theCardinal too, that it is really pitiful to see in what a wretched wayyour Republic selects its bishops, as though it intentionally desired toweaken its episcopacy. Leaving out a few fortunate exceptions, yourbishops are men of small brains, and as a result your cardinals, likewisemere mediocrities, have no influence, play no part here in Rome. Ah! whata sorry figure you Frenchmen will cut at the next Conclave! And so why doyou show such blind and foolish hatred of those Jesuits, who, politically, are your friends? Why don't you employ their intelligentzeal, which is ready to serve you, so that you may assure yourselves thehelp of the next, the coming pope? It is necessary for you that he shouldbe on your side, that he should continue the work of Leo XIII, which isso badly judged and so much opposed, but which cares little for the pettyresults of to-day, since its purpose lies in the future, in the union ofall the nations under their holy mother the Church. Tell CardinalBergerot, tell him plainly that he ought to be with us, that he ought towork for his country by working for us. The coming pope, why the wholequestion lies in that, and woe to France if in him she does not find acontinuator of Leo XIII!"

Nani had again risen, and this time he was going off. Never before had heunbosomed himself at such length. But most assuredly he had only saidwhat he desired to say, for a purpose that he alone knew of, and in afirm, gentle, and deliberate voice by which one could tell that each wordhad been weighed and determined beforehand. "Farewell, my dear son, " hesaid, "and once again think over all you have seen and heard in Rome. Beas sensible as you can, and do not spoil your life. "

Pierre bowed, and pressed the small, plump, supple hand which the prelateoffered him. "Monseigneur, " he replied, "I again thank you for all yourkindness; you may be sure that I shall forget nothing of my journey. "

Then he watched Nani as he went off, with a light and conquering step asif marching to all the victories of the future. No, no, he, Pierre, wouldforget nothing of his journey! He well knew that union of all the nationsunder their holy mother the Church, that temporal bondage in which thelaw of Christ would become the dictatorship of Augustus, master of theworld! And as for those Jesuits, he had no doubt that they did loveFrance, the eldest daughter of the Church, and the only daughter thatcould yet help her mother to reconquer universal sovereignty, but theyloved her even as the black swarms of locusts love the harvests whichthey swoop upon and devour. Infinite sadness had returned to the youngman's heart as he dimly realised that in that sorely-stricken mansion, inall that mourning and downfall, it was they, they again, who must havebeen the artisans of grief and disaster. 

As this thought came to him he turned round and perceived Don Vigilioleaning against the credence in front of the large portrait of theCardinal. Holding his hands to his face as if he desired to annihilatehimself, the secretary was shivering in every limb as much with fear aswith fever. At a moment when no fresh visitors were arriving he hadsuccumbed to an attack of terrified despair. 

"/Mon Dieu/! What is the matter with you?" asked Pierre stepping forward, "are you ill, can I help you?"

But Don Vigilio, suffocating and still hiding his face, could only gaspbetween his close-pressed hands "Ah! Paparelli, Paparelli!"

"What is it? What has he done to you?" asked the other astonished. 

Then the secretary disclosed his face, and again yielded to his quiveringdesire to confide in some one. "Eh? what he has done to me? Can't youfeel anything, can't you see anything then? Didn't you notice the mannerin which he took possession of Cardinal Sanguinetti so as to conduct himto his Eminence? To impose that suspected, hateful rival on his Eminenceat such a moment as this, what insolent audacity! And a few minutespreviously did you notice with what wicked cunning he bowed out an oldlady, a very old family friend, who only desired to kiss his Eminence'shand and show a little real affection which would have made his Eminenceso happy! Ah! I tell you that he's the master here, he opens or closesthe door as he pleases, and holds us all between his fingers like a pinchof dust which one throws to the wind!"

Pierre became anxious, seeing how yellow and feverish Don Vigilio was:"Come, come, my dear fellow, " he said, "you are exaggerating!"

"Exaggerating? Do you know what happened last night, what I myselfunwillingly witnessed? No, you don't know it; well, I will tell you. "

Thereupon he related that Donna Serafina, on returning home on theprevious day to face the terrible catastrophe awaiting her, had alreadybeen overcome by the bad news which she had learnt when calling on theCardinal Secretary and various prelates of her acquaintance. She had thenacquired a certainty that her brother's position was becoming extremelybad, for he had made so many fresh enemies among his colleagues of theSacred College, that his election to the pontifical throne, which a yearpreviously had seemed probable, now appeared an impossibility. Thus, allat once, the dream of her life collapsed, the ambition which she had solong nourished lay in dust at her feet. On despairingly seeking the whyand wherefore of this change, she had been told of all sorts of blunderscommitted by the Cardinal, acts of rough sternness, unseasonablemanifestations of opinion, inconsiderate words or actions which hadsufficed to wound people, in fact such provoking demeanour that one mighthave thought it adopted with the express intention of spoilingeverything. And the worst was that in each of the blunders she hadrecognised errors of judgment which she herself had blamed, but which herbrother had obstinately insisted on perpetrating under the unacknowledgedinfluence of Abbe Paparelli, that humble and insignificant train-bearer, in whom she detected a baneful and powerful adviser who destroyed her ownvigilant and devoted influence. And so, in spite of the mourning in whichthe house was plunged, she did not wish to delay the punishment of thetraitor, particularly as his old friendship with that terrible Santobono, and the story of that basket of figs which had passed from the hands ofthe one to those of the other, chilled her blood with a suspicion whichshe even recoiled from elucidating. However, at the first words shespoke, directly she made a formal request that the traitor should beimmediately turned out of the house, she was confronted by invincibleresistance on her brother's part. He would not listen to her, but flewinto one of those hurricane-like passions which swept everything away, reproaching her for laying blame on so modest, pious, and saintly a man, and accusing her of playing into the hands of his enemies, who, afterkilling Monsignor Gallo, were seeking to poison his sole remainingaffection for that poor, insignificant priest. He treated all the storieshe was told as abominable inventions, and swore that he would keep thetrain-bearer in his service if only to show his disdain for calumny. Andshe was thereupon obliged to hold her peace. 

However, Don Vigilio's shuddering fit had again come back; he carried hishands to his face stammering: "Ah! Paparelli, Paparelli!" And mutteredinvectives followed: the train-bearer was an artful hypocrite who feignedmodesty and humility, a vile spy appointed to pry into everything, listento everything, and pervert everything that went on in the palace; he wasa loathsome, destructive insect, feeding on the most noble prey, devouring the lion's mane, a Jesuit--the Jesuit who is at once lackey andtyrant, in all his base horror as he accomplishes the work of vermin. 

"Calm yourself, calm yourself, " repeated Pierre, who whilst allowing forfoolish exaggeration on the secretary's part could not help shivering atthought of all the threatening things which he himself could divine astirin the gloom. 

However, since Don Vigilio had so narrowly escaped eating those horriblefigs, his fright was such that nothing could calm it. Even when he wasalone at night, in bed, with his door locked and bolted, sudden terrorfell on him and made him hide his head under the sheet and vent stifledcries as if he thought that men were coming through the wall to stranglehim. In a faint, breathless voice, as if just emerging from a struggle, he now resumed: "I told you what would happen on the evening when we hada talk together in your room. Although all the doors were securely shut, I did wrong to speak of them to you, I did wrong to ease my heart bytelling you all that they were capable of. I was sure they would learnit, and you see they did learn it, since they tried to kill me. . . . Whyit's even wrong of me to tell you this, for it will reach their ears andthey won't miss me the next time. Ah! it's all over, I'm as good as dead;this house which I thought so safe will be my tomb. "

Pierre began to feel deep compassion for this ailing man, whose feverishbrain was haunted by nightmares, and whose life was being finally wreckedby the anguish of persecution mania. "But you must run away in thatcase!" he said. "Don't stop here; come to France. "

Don Vigilio looked at him, momentarily calmed by surprise. "Run away, why? Go to France? Why, they are there! No matter where I might go, theywould be there. They are everywhere, I should always be surrounded bythem! No, no, I prefer to stay here and would rather die at once if hisEminence can no longer defend me. " With an expression of ardent entreatyin which a last gleam of hope tried to assert itself, he raised his eyesto the large painting in which the Cardinal stood forth resplendent inhis cassock of red moire; but his attack came back again and overwhelmedhim with increased intensity of fever. "Leave me, I beg you, leave me, "he gasped. "Don't make me talk any more. Ah! Paparelli, Paparelli! If heshould come back and see us and hear me speak. . . . Oh! I'll never sayanything again. I'll tie up my tongue, I'll cut it off. Leave me, you arekilling me, I tell you, he'll be coming back and that will mean my death. Go away, oh! for mercy's sake, go away!"

Thereupon Don Vigilio turned towards the wall as if to flatten his faceagainst it, and immure his lips in tomb-like silence; and Pierre resolvedto leave him to himself, fearing lest he should provoke a yet moreserious attack if he went on endeavouring to succour him. 

On returning to the throne-room the young priest again found himselfamidst all the frightful mourning. Mass was following mass; withoutcessation murmured prayers entreated the divine mercy to receive the twodear departed souls with loving kindness. And amidst the dying perfume ofthe fading roses, in front of the pale stars of the lighted candles, Pierre thought of that supreme downfall of the Boccaneras. Dario was thelast of the name, and one could well understand that the Cardinal, whoseonly sin was family pride, should have loved that one remaining scion bywhom alone the old stock might yet blossom afresh. And indeed, if he andDonna Serafina had desired the divorce, and then the marriage of thecousins, it had been less with the view of putting an end to scandal thanwith the hope of seeing a new line of Boccaneras spring up. But thelovers were dead, and the last remains of a long series of dazzlingprinces of sword and of gown lay there on that bed, soon to rot in thegrave. It was all over; that old maid and that aged Cardinal could leaveno posterity. They remained face to face like two withered oaks, soleremnants of a vanished forest, and their fall would soon leave the plainquite clear. And how terrible the grief of surviving in impotence, whatanguish to have to tell oneself that one is the end of everything, thatwith oneself all life, all hope for the morrow will depart! Amidst themurmur of the prayers, the dying perfume of the roses, the pale gleams ofthe two candies, Pierre realised what a downfall was that bereavement, how heavy was the gravestone which fell for ever on an extinct house, avanished world. 

He well understood that as one of the familiars of the mansion he mustpay his respects to Donna Serafina and the Cardinal, and he at oncesought admission to the neighbouring room where the Princess wasreceiving her friends. He found her robed in black, very slim and veryerect in her arm-chair, whence she rose with slow dignity to respond tothe bow of each person that entered. She listened to the condolences butanswered never a word, overcoming her physical pain by rigidity ofbearing. Pierre, who had learnt to know her, could divine, however, bythe hollowness of her cheeks, the emptiness of her eyes, and the bittertwinge of her mouth, how frightful was the collapse within her. Not onlywas her race ended, but her brother would never be pope, never secure theelevation which she had so long fancied she was winning for him by dintof devotion, dint of feminine renunciation, giving brain and heart, careand money, foregoing even wifehood and motherhood, spoiling her wholelife, in order to realise that dream. And amidst all the ruin of hope, itwas perhaps the nonfulfilment of that ambition which most made her heartbleed. She rose for the young priest, her guest, as she rose for theother persons who presented themselves; but she contrived to introduceshades of meaning into the manner in which she quitted her chair, andPierre fully realised that he had remained in her eyes a mere pettyFrench priest, an insignificant domestic of the Divinity who had notknown how to acquire even the title of prelate. When she had again seatedherself after acknowledging his compliment with a slight inclination ofthe head, he remained for a moment standing, out of politeness. Not aword, not a sound disturbed the mournful quiescence of the room, foralthough there were four or five lady visitors seated there they remainedmotionless and silent as with grief. Pierre was most struck, however, bythe sight of Cardinal Sarno, who was lying back in an arm-chair with hiseyes closed. The poor puny lopsided old man had lingered thereforgetfully after expressing his condolences, and, overcome by the heavysilence and close atmosphere, had just fallen asleep. And everybodyrespected his slumber. Was he dreaming as he dozed of that map ofChristendom which he carried behind his low obtuse-looking brow? Was hecontinuing in dreamland his terrible work of conquest, that task ofsubjecting and governing the earth which he directed from his dark roomat the Propaganda? The ladies glanced at him affectionately anddeferentially; he was gently scolded at times for over-working himself, the sleepiness which nowadays frequently overtook him in all sorts ofplaces being attributed to excess of genius and zeal. And of thisall-powerful Eminence Pierre was destined to carry off only this lastimpression: an exhausted old man, resting amidst the emotion of amourning-gathering, sleeping there like a candid child, without any oneknowing whether this were due to the approach of senile imbecility, or tothe fatigues of a night spent in organising the reign of God over somedistant continent. 

Two ladies went off and three more arrived. Donna Serafina rose, bowed, and then reseated herself, reverting to her rigid attitude, her busterect, her face stern and full of despair. Cardinal Sarno was stillasleep. Then Pierre felt as if he would stifle, a kind of vertigo came onhim, and his heart beat violently. So he bowed and withdrew: and onpassing through the dining-room on his way to the little study whereCardinal Boccanera received his visitors, he found himself in thepresence of Paparelli who was jealously guarding the door. When thetrain-bearer had sniffed at the young man, he seemed to realise that hecould not refuse him admittance. Moreover, as this intruder was goingaway the very next day, defeated and covered with shame, there wasnothing to be feared from him. 

"You wish to see his Eminence?" said Paparelli. "Good, good. By and by, wait. " And opining that Pierre was too near the door, he pushed him backto the other end of the room, for fear no doubt lest he should overhearanything. "His Eminence is still engaged with his Eminence CardinalSanguinetti. Wait, wait there!"

Sanguinetti indeed had made a point of kneeling for a long time in frontof the bodies in the throne-room, and had then spun out his visit toDonna Serafina in order to mark how largely he shared the family sorrow. And for more than ten minutes now he had been closeted with CardinalBoccanera, nothing but an occasional murmur of their voices being heardthrough the closed door. 

Pierre, however, on finding Paparelli there, was again haunted by allthat Don Vigilio had told him. He looked at the train-bearer, so fat andshort, puffed out with bad fat in his dirty cassock, his face flabby andwrinkled, and his whole person at forty years of age suggestive of thatof a very old maid: and he felt astonished. How was it that CardinalBoccanera, that superb prince who carried his head so high, and who wasso supremely proud of his name, had allowed himself to be captured andswayed by such a frightful creature reeking of baseness and abomination?Was it not the man's very physical degradation and profound humility thathad struck him, disturbed him, and finally fascinated him, as wondrousgifts conducing to salvation, which he himself lacked? Paparelli's personand disposition were like blows dealt to his own handsome presence andhis own pride. He, who could not be so deformed, he who could notvanquish his passion for glory, must, by an effort of faith, have grownjealous of that man who was so extremely ugly and so extremelyinsignificant, he must have come to admire him as a superior force ofpenitence and human abasement which threw the portals of heaven wideopen. Who can ever tell what ascendency is exercised by the monster overthe hero; by the horrid-looking saint covered with vermin over thepowerful of this world in their terror at having to endure everlastingflames in payment of their terrestrial joys? And 'twas indeed the liondevoured by the insect, vast strength and splendour destroyed by theinvisible. Ah! to have that fine soul which was so certain of paradise, which for its welfare was enclosed in such a disgusting body, to possessthe happy humility of that wide intelligence, that remarkable theologian, who scourged himself with rods each morning on rising, and was content tobe the lowest of servants. 

Standing there a heap of livid fat, Paparelli on his side watched Pierrewith his little grey eyes blinking amidst the myriad wrinkles of hisface. And the young priest began to feel uneasy, wondering what theirEminences could be saying to one another, shut up together like that forso long a time. And what an interview it must be if Boccanera suspectedSanguinetti of counting Santobono among his clients. What serene audacityit was on Sanguinetti's part to have dared to present himself in thathouse, and what strength of soul there must be on Boccanera's part, whatempire over himself, to prevent all scandal by remaining silent andaccepting the visit as a simple mark of esteem and affection! What couldthey be saying to one another, however? How interesting it would havebeen to have seen them face to face, and have heard them exchange thediplomatic phrases suited to such an interview, whilst their souls wereraging with furious hatred!

All at once the door opened and Cardinal Sanguinetti appeared with calmface, no ruddier than usual, indeed a trifle paler, and retaining thefitting measure of sorrow which he had thought it right to assume. Hisrestless eyes alone revealed his delight at being rid of a difficulttask. And he was going off, all hope, in the conviction that he was theonly eligible candidate to the papacy that remained. 

Abbe Paparelli had darted forward: "If your Eminence will kindly followme--I will escort your Eminence to the door. " Then, turning towardsPierre, he added: "You may go in now. "

Pierre watched them walk away, the one so humble behind the other, whowas so triumphant. Then he entered the little work-room, furnished simplywith a table and three chairs, and in the centre of it he at onceperceived Cardinal Boccanera still standing in the lofty, noble attitudewhich he had assumed to take leave of Sanguinetti, his hated rival to thepontifical throne. And, visibly, Boccanera also believed himself the onlypossible pope, the one whom the coming Conclave would elect. 

However, when the door had been closed, and the Cardinal beheld thatyoung priest, his guest, who had witnessed the death of those two dearchildren lying in the adjoining room, he was again mastered by emotion, an unexpected attack of weakness in which all his energy collapsed. Hishuman feelings were taking their revenge now that his rival was no longerthere to see him. He staggered like an old tree smitten with the axe, andsank upon a chair, stifling with sobs. 

And as Pierre, according to usage, was about to stoop and kiss his ring, he raised him and at once made him sit down, stammering in a haltingvoice: "No, no, my dear son! Seat yourself there, wait--Excuse me, leaveme to myself for a moment, my heart is bursting. "

He sobbed with his hands to his face, unable to master himself, unable todrive back his grief with those yet vigorous fingers which were pressedto his cheeks and temples. 

Tears came into Pierre's eyes, for he also lived through all that woeafresh, and was much upset by the weeping of that tall old man, thatsaint and prince, usually so haughty, so fully master of himself, but nowonly a poor, suffering, agonising man, as weak and as lost as a child. However, although the young priest was likewise stifling with grief, hedesired to present his condolences, and sought for kindly words by whichhe might soothe the other's despair. "I beg your Eminence to believe inmy profound grief, " he said. "I have been overwhelmed with kindness here, and desired at once to tell your Eminence how much that irreparableloss--"

But with a brave gesture the Cardinal silenced him. "No, no, say nothing, for mercy's sake say nothing!"

And silence reigned while he continued weeping, shaken by the struggle hewas waging, his efforts to regain sufficient strength to overcomehimself. At last he mastered his quiver and slowly uncovered his face, which had again become calm, like that of a believer strong in his faith, and submissive to the will of God. In refusing a miracle, in dealing sohard a blow to that house, God had doubtless had His reasons, and he, theCardinal, one of God's ministers, one of the high dignitaries of Histerrestrial court, was in duty bound to bow to it. The silence lasted foranother moment, and then, in a voice which he managed to render naturaland cordial, Boccanera said: "You are leaving us, you are going back toFrance to-morrow, are you not, my dear son?"

"Yes, I shall have the honour to take leave of your Eminence to-morrow, again thanking your Eminence for your inexhaustible kindness. "

"And you have learnt that the Congregation of the Index has condemnedyour book, as was inevitable?"

"Yes, I obtained the signal favour of being received by his Holiness, andin his presence made my submission and reprobated my book. "

The Cardinal's moist eyes again began to sparkle. "Ah! you did that, ah!you did well, my dear son, " he said. "It was only your strict duty as apriest, but there are so many nowadays who do not even do their duty! Asa member of the Congregation I kept the promise I gave you to read yourbook, particularly the incriminated pages. And if I afterwards remainedneutral, to such a point even as to miss the sitting in which judgmentwas pronounced, it was only to please my poor, dear niece, who was sofond of you, and who pleaded your cause to me. "

Tears were coming into his eyes again, and he paused, feeling that hewould once more be overcome if he evoked the memory of that adored andlamented Benedetta. And so it was with a pugnacious bitterness that heresumed: "But what an execrable book it was, my dear son, allow me totell you so. You told me that you had shown respect for dogma, and Istill wonder what aberration can have come over you that you should havebeen so blind to all consciousness of your offences. Respect fordogma--good Lord! when the entire work is the negation of our holyreligion! Did you not realise that by asking for a new religion youabsolutely condemned the old one, the only true one, the only good one, the only one that can be eternal? And that sufficed to make your book themost deadly of poisons, one of those infamous books which in former timeswere burnt by the hangman, and which one is nowadays compelled to leavein circulation after interdicting them and thereby designating them toevil curiosity, which explains the contagious rottenness of the century. Ah! I well recognised there some of the ideas of our distinguished andpoetical relative, that dear Viscount Philibert de la Choue. A man ofletters, yes! a man of letters! Literature, mere literature! I beg God toforgive him, for he most surely does not know what he is doing, orwhither he is going with his elegiac Christianity for talkative workingmen and young persons of either sex, to whom scientific notions havegiven vagueness of soul. And I only feel angry with his Eminence CardinalBergerot, for he at any rate knows what he does, and does as he pleases. No, say nothing, do not defend him. He personifies Revolution in theChurch, and is against God. "

Although Pierre had resolved that he would not reply or argue, he hadallowed a gesture of protest to escape him on hearing this furious attackupon the man whom he most respected in the whole world. However, heyielded to Cardinal Boccanera's injunction and again bowed. 

"I cannot sufficiently express my horror, " the Cardinal roughlycontinued; "yes, my horror for all that hollow dream of a new religion!That appeal to the most hideous passions which stir up the poor againstthe rich, by promising them I know not what division of wealth, whatcommunity of possession which is nowadays impossible! That base flatteryshown to the lower orders to whom equality and justice are promised butnever given, for these can come from God alone, it is only He who canfinally make them reign on the day appointed by His almighty power! Andthere is even that interested charity which people abuse of to railagainst Heaven itself and accuse it of iniquity and indifference, thatlackadaisical weakening charity and compassion, unworthy of strong firmhearts, for it is as if human suffering were not necessary for salvation, as if we did not become more pure, greater and nearer to the supremehappiness, the more and more we suffer!"

He was growing excited, full of anguish, and superb. It was hisbereavement, his heart wound, which thus exasperated him, the great blowwhich had felled him for a moment, but against which he again rose erect, defying grief, and stubborn in his stoic belief in an omnipotent God, whowas the master of mankind, and reserved felicity to those whom Heselected. Again, however, he made an effort to calm himself, and resumedin a more gentle voice: "At all events the fold is always open, my dearson, and here you are back in it since you have repented. You cannotimagine how happy it makes me. "

In his turn Pierre strove to show himself conciliatory in order that hemight not further ulcerate that violent, grief-stricken soul: "YourEminence, " said he, "may be sure that I shall endeavour to remember everyone of the kind words which your Eminence has spoken to me, in the sameway as I shall remember the fatherly greeting of his Holiness Leo XIII. "

This sentence seemed to throw Boccanera into agitation again. At firstonly murmured, restrained words came from him, as if he were strugglingagainst a desire to question the, young priest. "Ah yes! you saw hisHoliness, you spoke to him, and he told you I suppose, as he tells allthe foreigners who go to pay their respects to him, that he desiresconciliation and peace. For my part I now only see him when it isabsolutely necessary; for more than a year I have not been received inprivate audience. "

This proof of disfavour, of the covert struggle which as in the days ofPius IX kept the Holy Father and the /Camerlingo/ at variance, filled thelatter with bitterness. He was unable to restrain himself and spoke out, reflecting no doubt that he had a familiar before him, one whosediscretion was certain, and who moreover was leaving Rome on the morrow. "One may go a long way, " said he, "with those fine words, peace andconciliation, which are so often void of real wisdom and courage. Theterrible truth is that Leo XIII's eighteen years of concessions haveshaken everything in the Church, and should he long continue to reignCatholicism would topple over and crumble into dust like a building whosepillars have been undermined. "

Interested by this remark, Pierre in his desire for knowledge began toraise objections. "But hasn't his Holiness shown himself very prudent?"he asked; "has he not placed dogma on one side in an impregnablefortress? If he seems to have made concessions on many points, have theynot always been concessions in mere matters of form?"

"Matters of form; ah, yes!" the Cardinal resumed with increasing passion. "He told you, no doubt, as he tells others, that whilst in substance hewill make no surrender, he will readily yield in matters of form! It's adeplorable axiom, an equivocal form of diplomacy even when it isn't somuch low hypocrisy! My soul revolts at the thought of that Opportunism, that Jesuitism which makes artifice its weapon, and only serves to castdoubt among true believers, the confusion of a /sauve-qui-peut/, which byand by must lead to inevitable defeat. It is cowardice, the worst form ofcowardice, abandonment of one's weapons in order that one may retreat themore speedily, shame of oneself, assumption of a mask in the hope ofdeceiving the enemy, penetrating into his camp, and overcoming him bytreachery! No, no, form is everything in a traditional and immutablereligion, which for eighteen hundred years has been, is now, and till theend of time will be the very law of God!"

The Cardinal's feelings so stirred him that he was unable to remainseated, and began to walk about the little room. And it was the wholereign, the whole policy of Leo XIII which he discussed and condemned. "Unity too, " he continued, "that famous unity of the Christian Churchwhich his Holiness talks of bringing about, and his desire for whichpeople turn to his great glory, why, it is only the blind ambition of aconqueror enlarging his empire without asking himself if the new nationsthat he subjects may not disorganise, adulterate, and impregnate his oldand hitherto faithful people with every error. What if all theschismatical nations on returning to the Catholic Church should sotransform it as to kill it and make it a new Church? There is only onewise course, which is to be what one is, and that firmly. Again, isn'tthere both shame and danger in that pretended alliance with the democracywhich in itself gives the lie to the ancient spirit of the papacy? Theright of kings is divine, and to abandon the monarchical principle is toset oneself against God, to compound with revolution, and harbour amonstrous scheme of utilising the madness of men the better to establishone's power over them. All republics are forms of anarchy, and there canbe no more criminal act, one which must for ever shake the principle ofauthority, order, and religion itself, than that of recognising arepublic as legitimate for the sole purpose of indulging a dream ofimpossible conciliation. And observe how this bears on the question ofthe temporal power. He continues to claim it, he makes a point of nosurrender on that question of the restoration of Rome; but in reality, has he not made the loss irreparable, has he not definitively renouncedRome, by admitting that nations have the right to drive away their kingsand live like wild beasts in the depths of the forest?"

All at once the Cardinal stopped short and raised his arms to Heaven in aburst of holy anger. "Ah! that man, ah! that man who by his vanity andcraving for success will have proved the ruin of the Church, that man whohas never ceased corrupting everything, dissolving everything, crumblingeverything in order to reign over the world which he fancies he willreconquer by those means, why, Almighty God, why hast Thou not alreadycalled him to Thee?"

So sincere was the accent in which that appeal to Death was raised, tosuch a point was hatred magnified by a real desire to save the Deityimperilled here below, that a great shudder swept through Pierre also. Henow understood that Cardinal Boccanera who religiously and passionatelyhated Leo XIII; he saw him in the depths of his black palace, waiting andwatching for the Pope's death, that death which as /Camerlingo/ he mustofficially certify. How feverishly he must wait, how impatiently he mustdesire the advent of the hour, when with his little silver hammer hewould deal the three symbolic taps on the skull of Leo XIII, while thelatter lay cold and rigid on his bed surrounded by his pontifical Court. Ah! to strike that wall of the brain, to make sure that nothing morewould answer from within, that nothing beyond night and silence was leftthere. And the three calls would ring out: "Gioachino! Gioachino!Gioachino!" And, the corpse making no answer, the /Camerlingo/ afterwaiting for a few seconds would turn and say: "The Pope is dead!"

"Conciliation, however, is the weapon of the times, " remarked Pierre, wishing to bring the Cardinal back to the present, "and it is in order tomake sure of conquering that the Holy Father yields in matters of form. "

"He will not conquer, he will be conquered, " cried Boccanera. "Never hasthe Church been victorious save in stubbornly clinging to itsintegrality, the immutable eternity of its divine essence. And it wouldfor a certainty fall on the day when it should allow a single stone ofits edifice to be touched. Remember the terrible period through which itpassed at the time of the Council of Trent. The Reformation had justdeeply shaken it, laxity of discipline and morals was everywhereincreasing, there was a rising tide of novelties, ideas suggested by thespirit of evil, unhealthy projects born of the pride of man, running riotin full license. And at the Council itself many members were disturbed, poisoned, ready to vote for the wildest changes, a fresh schism added toall the others. Well, if Catholicism was saved at that critical period, under the threat of such great danger, it was because the majority, enlightened by God, maintained the old edifice intact, it was becausewith divinely inspired obstinacy it kept itself within the narrow limitsof dogma, it was because it made no concession, none, whether insubstance or in form! Nowadays the situation is certainly not worse thanit was at the time of the Council of Trent. Let us suppose it to be muchthe same, and tell me if it is not nobler, braver, and safer for theChurch to show the courage which she showed before and declare aloud whatshe is, what she has been, and what she will be. There is no salvationfor her otherwise than in her complete, indisputable sovereignty; andsince she has always conquered by non-surrender, all attempts toconciliate her with the century are tantamount to killing her!"

The Cardinal had again begun to walk to and fro with thoughtful step. "No, no, " said he, "no compounding, no surrender, no weakness! Rather thewall of steel which bars the road, the block of granite which marks thelimit of a world! As I told you, my dear son, on the day of your arrival, to try to accommodate Catholicism to the new times is to hasten its end, if really it be threatened, as atheists pretend. And in that way it woulddie basely and shamefully instead of dying erect, proud, and dignified inits old glorious royalty! Ah! to die standing, denying nought of thepast, braving the future and confessing one's whole faith!"

That old man of seventy seemed to grow yet loftier as he spoke, free fromall dread of final annihilation, and making the gesture of a hero whodefies futurity. Faith had given him serenity of peace; he believed, heknew, he had neither doubt nor fear of the morrow of death. Still hisvoice was tinged with haughty sadness as he resumed, "God can do all, even destroy His own work should it seem evil in His eyes. But though allshould crumble to-morrow, though the Holy Church should disappear amongthe ruins, though the most venerated sanctuaries should be crushed by thefalling stars, it would still be necessary for us to bow and adore God, who after creating the world might thus annihilate it for His own glory. And I wait, submissive to His will, for nothing happens unless He willsit. If really the temples be shaken, if Catholicism be fated to fallto-morrow into dust, I shall be here to act as the minister of death, even as I have been the minister of life! It is certain, I confess it, that there are hours when terrible signs appear to me. Perhaps, indeed, the end of time is nigh, and we shall witness that fall of the old worldwith which others threaten us. The worthiest, the loftiest are struckdown as if Heaven erred, and in them punished the crimes of the world. Have I not myself felt the blast from the abyss into which all must sink, since my house, for transgressions that I am ignorant of, has beenstricken with that frightful bereavement which precipitates it into thegulf which casts it back into night everlasting!"

He again evoked those two dear dead ones who were always present in hismind. Sobs were once more rising in his throat, his hands trembled, hislofty figure quivered with the last revolt of grief. Yes, if God hadstricken him so severely by suppressing his race, if the greatest andmost faithful were thus punished, it must be that the world wasdefinitively condemned. Did not the end of his house mean the approachingend of all? And in his sovereign pride as priest and as prince, he founda cry of supreme resignation, once more raising his hands on high:"Almighty God, Thy will be done! May all die, all fall, all return to thenight of chaos! I shall remain standing in this ruined palace, waiting tobe buried beneath its fragments. And if Thy will should summon me to buryThy holy religion, be without fear, I shall do nothing unworthy toprolong its life for a few days! I will maintain it erect, like myself, as proud, as uncompromising as in the days of all its power. I will yieldnothing, whether in discipline, or in rite, or in dogma. And when the dayshall come I will bury it with myself, carrying it whole into the graverather than yielding aught of it, encompassing it with my cold arms torestore it to Thee, even as Thou didst commit it to the keeping of ThyChurch. O mighty God and sovereign Master, dispose of me, make me if suchbe Thy good pleasure the pontiff of destruction, the pontiff of the deathof the world. "

Pierre, who was thunderstruck, quivered with fear and admiration at theextraordinary vision this evoked: the last of the popes interringCatholicism. He understood that Boccanera must at times have made thatdream; he could see him in the Vatican, in St. Peter's which thethunderbolts had riven asunder, he could see him erect and alone in thespacious halls whence his terrified, cowardly pontifical Court had fled. Clad in his white cassock, thus wearing white mourning for the Church, heonce more descended to the sanctuary, there to wait for heaven to fall onthe evening of Time's accomplishment and annihilate the earth. Thrice heraised the large crucifix, overthrown by the supreme convulsions of thesoil. Then, when the final crack rent the steps apart, he caught it inhis arms and was annihilated with it beneath the falling vaults. Andnothing could be more instinct with fierce and kingly grandeur. 

Voiceless, but without weakness, his lofty stature invincible and erectin spite of all, Cardinal Boccanera made a gesture dismissing Pierre, whoyielding to his passion for truth and beauty found that he alone wasgreat and right, and respectfully kissed his hand. 

It was in the throne-room, with closed doors, at nightfall, after thevisits had ceased, that the two bodies were laid in their coffin. Thereligious services had come to an end, and in the close silent atmospherethere only lingered the dying perfume of the roses and the warm odour ofthe candles. As the latter's pale stars scarcely lighted the spaciousroom, some lamps had been brought, and servants held them in their handslike torches. According to custom, all the servants of the house werepresent to bid a last farewell to the departed. 

There was a little delay. Morano, who had been giving himself no end oftrouble ever since morning, was forced to run off again as the triplecoffin did not arrive. At last it came, some servants brought it up, andthen they were able to begin. The Cardinal and Donna Serafina stood sideby side near the bed. Pierre also was present, as well as Don Vigilio. Itwas Victorine who sewed the lovers up in the white silk shroud, whichseemed like a bridal robe, the gay pure robe of their union. Then twoservants came forward and helped Pierre and Don Vigilio to lay the bodiesin the first coffin, of pine wood lined with pink satin. It was scarcelybroader than an ordinary coffin, so young and slim were the lovers and sotightly were they clasped in their last embrace. When they were stretchedinside they there continued their eternal slumber, their heads halfhidden by their odorous, mingling hair. And when this first coffin hadbeen placed in the second one, a leaden shell, and the second had beenenclosed in the third, of stout oak, and when the three lids had beensoldered and screwed down, the lovers' faces could still be seen throughthe circular opening, covered with thick glass, which in accordance withthe Roman custom had been left in each of the coffins. And then, for everparted from the living, alone together, they still gazed at one anotherwith their eyes obstinately open, having all eternity before them whereinto exhaust their infinite love. 

XVI

ON the following day, on his return from the funeral Pierre lunched alonein his room, having decided to take leave of the Cardinal and DonnaSerafina during the afternoon. He was quitting Rome that evening by thetrain which started at seventeen minutes past ten. There was nothing todetain him any longer; there was only one visit which he desired to make, a visit to old Orlando, with whom he had promised to have a long chatprior to his departure. And so a little before two o'clock he sent for acab which took him to the Via Venti Settembre. A fine rain had fallen allnight, its moisture steeping the city in grey vapour; and though thisrain had now ceased the sky remained very dark, and the huge new mansionsof the Via Venti Settembre were quite livid, interminably mournful withtheir balconies ever of the same pattern and their regular and endlessrows of windows. The Ministry of Finances, that colossal pile of masonryand sculpture, looked in particular like a dead town, a huge bloodlessbody whence all life had withdrawn. On the other hand, although all wasso gloomy the rain had made the atmosphere milder, in fact it was almostwarm, damply and feverishly warm. 

In the hall of Prada's little palazzo Pierre was surprised to find fouror five gentlemen taking off their overcoats; however he learnt from aservant that Count Luigi had a meeting that day with some contractors. Ashe, Pierre, wished to see the Count's father he had only to ascend to thethird floor, added the servant. He must knock at the little door on theright-hand side of the landing there. 

On the very first landing, however, the priest found himself face to facewith the young Count who was there receiving the contractors, and who onrecognising him became frightfully pale. They had not met since thetragedy at the Boccanera mansion, and Pierre well realised how greatlyhis glance disturbed that man, what a troublesome recollection of moralcomplicity it evoked, and what mortal dread lest he should have guessedthe truth. 

"Have you come to see me, have you something to tell me?" the Countinquired. 

"No, I am leaving Rome, I have come to wish your father good-bye. "

Prada's pallor increased at this, and his whole face quivered: "Ah! it isto see my father. He is not very well, be gentle with him, " he replied, and as he spoke, his look of anguish clearly proclaimed what he fearedfrom Pierre, some imprudent word, perhaps even a final mission, themalediction of that man and woman whom he had killed. And surely if hisfather knew, he would die as well. "Ah! how annoying it is, " he resumed, "I can't go up with you! There are gentlemen waiting for me. Yes, howannoyed I am. As soon as possible, however, I will join you, yes, as soonas possible. "

He knew not how to stop the young priest, whom he must evidently allow toremain with his father, whilst he himself stayed down below, kept thereby his pecuniary worries. But how distressful were the eyes with which hewatched Pierre climb the stairs, how he seemed to supplicate him with hiswhole quivering form. His father, good Lord, the only true love, the onegreat, pure, faithful passion of his life!

"Don't make him talk too much, brighten him, won't you?" were his partingwords. 

Up above it was not Batista, the devoted ex-soldier, who opened the door, but a very young fellow to whom Pierre did not at first pay anyattention. The little room was bare and light as on previous occasions, and from the broad curtainless window there was the superb view of Rome, Rome crushed that day beneath a leaden sky and steeped in shade ofinfinite mournfulness. Old Orlando, however, had in no wise changed, butstill displayed the superb head of an old blanched lion, a powerfulmuzzle and youthful eyes, which yet sparkled with the passions which hadgrowled in a soul of fire. Pierre found the stricken hero in the samearm-chair as previously, near the same table littered with newspapers, and with his legs buried in the same black wrapper, as if he were thereimmobilised in a sheath of stone, to such a point that after months andyears one was sure to perceive him quite unchanged, with living bust, andface glowing with strength and intelligence. 

That grey day, however, he seemed gloomy, low in spirits. "Ah! so hereyou are, my dear Monsieur Froment, " he exclaimed, "I have been thinkingof you these three days past, living the awful days which you must havelived in that tragic Palazzo Boccanera. Ah, God! What a frightfulbereavement! My heart is quite overwhelmed, these newspapers have againjust upset me with the fresh details they give!" He pointed as he spoketo the papers scattered over the table. Then with a gesture he strove tobrush aside the gloomy story, and banish that vision of Benedetta dead, which had been haunting him. "Well, and yourself?" he inquired. 

"I am leaving this evening, " replied Pierre, "but I did not wish to quitRome without pressing your brave hands. "

"You are leaving? But your book?"

"My book--I have been received by the Holy Father, I have made mysubmission and reprobated my book. "

Orlando looked fixedly at the priest. There was a short interval ofsilence, during which their eyes told one another all that they had totell respecting the affair. Neither felt the necessity of any longerexplanation. The old man merely spoke these concluding words: "You havedone well, your book was a chimera. "

"Yes, a chimera, a piece of childishness, and I have condemned it myselfin the name of truth and reason. "

A smile appeared on the dolorous lips of the impotent hero. "Then youhave seen things, you understand and know them now?"

"Yes, I know them; and that is why I did not wish to go off withouthaving that frank conversation with you which we agreed upon. "

Orlando was delighted, but all at once he seemed to remember the youngfellow who had opened the door to Pierre, and who had afterwards modestlyresumed his seat on a chair near the window. This young fellow was ayouth of twenty, still beardless, of a blonde handsomeness such asoccasionally flowers at Naples, with long curly hair, a lily-likecomplexion, a rosy mouth, and soft eyes full of a dreamy languor. The oldman presented him in fatherly fashion, Angiolo Mascara his name was, andhe was the grandson of an old comrade in arms, the epic Mascara of theThousand, who had died like a hero, his body pierced by a hundred wounds. 

"I sent for him to scold him, " continued Orlando with a smile. "Do youknow that this fine fellow with his girlish airs goes in for the newideas? He is an Anarchist, one of the three or four dozen Anarchists thatwe have in Italy. He's a good little lad at bottom, he has only hismother left him, and supports her, thanks to the little berth which heholds, but which he'll lose one of these fine days if he is not careful. Come, come, my child, you must promise me to be reasonable. "

Thereupon Angiolo, whose clean but well-worn garments bespoke decentpoverty, made answer in a grave and musical voice: "I am reasonable, itis the others, all the others who are not. When all men are reasonableand desire truth and justice, the world will be happy. "

"Ah! if you fancy that he'll give way!" cried Orlando. "But, my poorchild, just ask Monsieur l'Abbe if one ever knows where truth and justiceare. Well, well, one must leave you the time to live, and see, andunderstand things. "

Then, paying no more attention to the young man, he returned to Pierre, while Angiolo, remaining very quiet in his corner, kept his eyes ardentlyfixed on them, and with open, quivering ears lost not a word they said. 

"I told you, my dear Monsieur Froment, " resumed Orlando, "that your ideaswould change, and that acquaintance with Rome would bring you to accurateviews far more readily than any fine speeches I could make to you. So Inever doubted but what you would of your own free will withdraw your bookas soon as men and things should have enlightened you respecting theVatican at the present day. But let us leave the Vatican on one side, there is nothing to be done but to let it continue falling slowly andinevitably into ruin. What interests me is our Italian Rome, which youtreated as an element to be neglected, but which you have now seen andstudied, so that we can both speak of it with the necessary knowledge!"

He thereupon at once granted a great many things, acknowledged thatblunders had been committed, that the finances were in a deplorablestate, and that there were serious difficulties of all kinds. They, theItalians, had sinned by excess of legitimate pride, they had proceededtoo hastily with their attempt to improvise a great nation, to changeancient Rome into a great modern capital as by the mere touch of a wand. And thence had come that mania for erecting new districts, that madspeculation in land and shares, which had brought the country within ahair's breadth of bankruptcy. 

At this Pierre gently interrupted him to tell him of the view which hehimself had arrived at after his peregrinations and studies through Rome. "That fever of the first hour, that financial /debacle/, " said he, "isafter all nothing. All pecuniary sores can be healed. But the grave pointis that your Italy still remains to be created. There is no aristocracyleft, and as yet there is no people, nothing but a devouring middleclass, dating from yesterday, which preys on the rich harvest of thefuture before it is ripe. "

Silence fell. Orlando sadly wagged his old leonine head. The cuttingharshness of Pierre's formula struck him in the heart. "Yes, yes, " hesaid at last, "that is so, you have seen things plainly; and why say nowhen facts are there, patent to everybody? I myself had already spoken toyou of that middle class which hungers so ravenously for place andoffice, distinctions and plumes, and which at the same time is soavaricious, so suspicious with regard to its money which it invests inbanks, never risking it in agriculture or manufactures or commerce, having indeed the one desire to enjoy life without doing anything, and sounintelligent that it cannot see it is killing its country by itsloathing for labour, its contempt for the poor, its one ambition to livein a petty way with the barren glory of belonging to some officialadministration. And, as you say, the aristocracy is dying, discrowned, ruined, sunk into the degeneracy which overtakes races towards theirclose, most of its members reduced to beggary, the others, the few whohave clung to their money, crushed by heavy imposts, possessing noughtbut dead fortunes which constant sharing diminishes and which must soondisappear with the princes themselves. And then there is the people, which has suffered so much and suffers still, but is so used to sufferingthat it can seemingly conceive no idea of emerging from it, blind anddeaf as it is, almost regretting its ancient bondage, and so ignorant, soabominably ignorant, which is the one cause of its hopeless, morrowlessmisery, for it has not even the consolation of understanding that if wehave conquered and are trying to resuscitate Rome and Italy in theirancient glory, it is for itself, the people, alone. Yes, yes, noaristocracy left, no people as yet, and a middle class which reallyalarms one. How can one therefore help yielding at times to the terrorsof the pessimists, who pretend that our misfortunes are as yet nothing, that we are going forward to yet more awful catastrophes, as though, indeed, what we now behold were but the first symptoms of our race's end, the premonitory signs of final annihilation!"

As he spoke he raised his long quivering arms towards the window, towardsthe light, and Pierre, deeply moved, remembered how Cardinal Boccanera onthe previous day had made a similar gesture of supplicant distress whenappealing to the divine power. And both men, Cardinal and patriot, sohostile in their beliefs, were instinct with the same fierce anddespairing grandeur. 

"As I told you, however, on the first day, " continued Orlando, "we onlysought to accomplish logical and inevitable things. As for Rome, with herpast history of splendour and domination which weighs so heavily upon us, we could not do otherwise than take her for capital, for she alone wasthe bond, the living symbol of our unity at the same time as the promiseof eternity, the renewal offered to our great dream of resurrection andglory. "

He went on, recognising the disastrous conditions under which Romelaboured as a capital. She was a purely decorative city with exhaustedsoil, she had remained apart from modern life, she was unhealthy, sheoffered no possibility of commerce or industry, she was invincibly preyedupon by death, standing as she did amidst that sterile desert of theCampagna. Then he compared her with the other cities which are jealous ofher; first Florence, which, however, has become so indifferent and sosceptical, impregnated with a happy heedlessness which seems inexplicablewhen one remembers the frantic passions, and the torrents of bloodrolling through her history; next Naples, which yet remains content withher bright sun, and whose childish people enjoy their ignorance andwretchedness so indolently that one knows not whether one ought to pitythem; next Venice, which has resigned herself to remaining a marvel ofancient art, which one ought to put under glass so as to preserve herintact, slumbering amid the sovereign pomp of her annals; next Genoa, which is absorbed in trade, still active and bustling, one of the lastqueens of that Mediterranean, that insignificant lake which was once theopulent central sea, whose waters carried the wealth of the world; andthen particularly Turin and Milan, those industrial and commercialcentres, which are so full of life and so modernised that touristsdisdain them as not being "Italian" cities, both of them having savedthemselves from ruin by entering into that Western evolution which ispreparing the next century. Ah! that old land of Italy, ought one toleave it all as a dusty museum for the pleasure of artistic souls, leaveit to crumble away, even as its little towns of Magna Graecia, Umbria, and Tuscany are already crumbling, like exquisite /bibelots/ which onedares not repair for fear that one might spoil their character. At allevents, there must either be death, death soon and inevitable, or elsethe pick of the demolisher, the tottering walls thrown to the ground, andcities of labour, science, and health created on all sides; in one word, a new Italy really rising from the ashes of the old one, and adapted tothe new civilisation into which humanity is entering. 

"However, why despair?" Orlando continued energetically. "Rome may weighheavily on our shoulders, but she is none the less the summit we coveted. We are here, and we shall stay here awaiting events. Even if thepopulation does not increase it at least remains stationary at a figureof some 400, 000 souls, and the movement of increase may set in again whenthe causes which stopped it shall have ceased. Our blunder was to thinkthat Rome would become a Paris or Berlin; but, so far, all sorts ofsocial, historical, even ethnical considerations seem opposed to it; yetwho can tell what may be the surprises of to-morrow? Are we forbidden tohope, to put faith in the blood which courses in our veins, the blood ofthe old conquerors of the world? I, who no longer stir from this room, impotent as I am, even I at times feel my madness come back, believe inthe invincibility and immortality of Rome, and wait for the two millionsof people who must come to populate those dolorous new districts whichyou have seen so empty and already falling into ruins! And certainly theywill come! Why not? You will see, you will see, everything will bepopulated, and even more houses will have to be built. Moreover, can youcall a nation poor, when it possesses Lombardy? Is there not alsoinexhaustible wealth in our southern provinces? Let peace settle down, let the South and the North mingle together, and a new generation ofworkers grow up. Since we have the soil, such a fertile soil, the greatharvest which is awaited will surely some day sprout and ripen under theburning sun!"

Enthusiasm was upbuoying him, all the /furia/ of youth inflamed his eyes. Pierre smiled, won over; and as soon as he was able to speak, he said:"The problem must be tackled down below, among the people. You must makemen!"

"Exactly!" cried Orlando. "I don't cease repeating it, one must makeItaly. It is as if a wind from the East had blown the seed of humanity, the seed which makes vigorous and powerful nations, elsewhere. Our peopleis not like yours in France, a reservoir of men and money from which onecan draw as plentifully as one pleases. It is such another inexhaustiblereservoir that I wish to see created among us. And one must begin at thebottom. There must be schools everywhere, ignorance must be stamped out, brutishness and idleness must be fought with books, intellectual andmoral instruction must give us the industrious people which we need if weare not to disappear from among the great nations. And once again forwhom, if not for the democracy of to-morrow, have we worked in takingpossession of Rome? And how easily one can understand that all shouldcollapse here, and nothing grow up vigorously since such a democracy isabsolutely absent. Yes, yes, the solution of the problem does not lieelsewhere; we must make a people, make an Italian democracy. "

Pierre had grown calm again, feeling somewhat anxious yet not daring tosay that it is by no means easy to modify a nation, that Italy is such assoil, history, and race have made her, and that to seek to transform herso radically and all at once might be a dangerous enterprise. Do notnations like beings have an active youth, a resplendent prime, and a moreor less prolonged old age ending in death? A modern democratic Rome, goodheavens! The modern Romes are named Paris, London, Chicago. So hecontented himself with saying: "But pending this great renovation of thepeople, don't you think that you ought to be prudent? Your finances arein such a bad condition, you are passing through such great social andeconomic difficulties, that you run the risk of the worst catastrophesbefore you secure either men or money. Ah! how prudent would thatminister be who should say in your Chamber: 'Our pride has made amistake, it was wrong of us to try to make ourselves a great nation inone day; more time, labour, and patience are needed; and we consent toremain for the present a young nation, which will quietly reflect andlabour at self-formation, without, for a long time yet, seeking to play adominant part. So we intend to disarm, to strike out the war and navalestimates, all the estimates intended for display abroad, in order todevote ourselves to our internal prosperity, and to build up byeducation, physically and morally, the great nation which we swear wewill be fifty years hence!' Yes, yes, strike out all needlessexpenditure, your salvation lies in that!"

But Orlando, while listening, had become gloomy again, and with a vague, weary gesture he replied in an undertone: "No, no, the minister whoshould use such language would be hooted. It would be too hard aconfession, such as one cannot ask a nation to make. Every heart wouldbound, leap forth at the idea. And, besides, would not the danger perhapsbe even greater if all that has been done were allowed to crumble? Howmany wrecked hopes, how much discarded, useless material there would be!No, we can now only save ourselves by patience and courage--and forward, ever forward! We are a very young nation, and in fifty years we desiredto effect the unity which others have required two hundred years toarrive at. Well, we must pay for our haste, we must wait for the harvestto ripen, and fill our barns. " Then, with another and more sweeping waveof the arm, he stubbornly strengthened himself in his hopes. "You know, "said he, "that I was always against the alliance with Germany. As Ipredicted, it has ruined us. We were not big enough to march side by sidewith such a wealthy and powerful person, and it is in view of a war, always near at hand and inevitable, that we now suffer so cruelly fromhaving to support the budgets of a great nation. Ah! that war which hasnever come, it is that which has exhausted the best part of our blood andsap and money without the slightest profit. To-day we have nothing beforeus but the necessity of breaking with our ally, who speculated on ourpride, who has never helped us in any way, who has never given usanything but bad advice, and treated us otherwise than with suspicion. But it was all inevitable, and that's what people won't admit in France. I can speak freely of it all, for I am a declared friend of France, andpeople even feel some spite against me on that account. However, explainto your compatriots, that on the morrow of our conquest of Rome, in ourfrantic desire to resume our ancient rank, it was absolutely necessarythat we should play our part in Europe and show that we were a power withwhom the others must henceforth count. And hesitation was not allowable, all our interests impelled us toward Germany, the evidence was so bindingas to impose itself. The stern law of the struggle for life weighs asheavily on nations as on individuals, and this it is which explains andjustifies the rupture between the two sisters, France and Italy, theforgetting of so many ties, race, commercial intercourse, and, if youlike, services also. The two sisters, ah! they now pursue each other withso much hatred that all common sense even seems at an end. My poor oldheart bleeds when I read the articles which your newspapers and oursexchange like poisoned darts. When will this fratricidal massacre cease, which of the two will first realise the necessity of peace, the necessityof the alliance of the Latin races, if they are to remain alive amidstthose torrents of other races which more and more invade the world?" Thengaily, with the /bonhomie/ of a hero disarmed by old age, and seeking arefuge in his dreams, Orlando added: "Come, you must promise to help meas soon as you are in Paris. However small your field of action may be, promise me you will do all you can to promote peace between France andItaly; there can be no more holy task. Relate all you have seen here, allyou have heard, oh! as frankly as possible. If we have faults, youcertainly have faults as well. And, come, family quarrels can't last forever!"

"No doubt, " Pierre answered in some embarrassment. "Unfortunately theyare the most tenacious. In families, when blood becomes exasperated withblood, hate goes as far as poison and the knife. And pardon becomesimpossible. "

He dared not fully express his thoughts. Since he had been in Rome, listening, and considering things, the quarrel between Italy and Francehad resumed itself in his mind in a fine tragic story. Once upon a timethere were two princesses, daughters of a powerful queen, the mistress ofthe world. The elder one, who had inherited her mother's kingdom, wassecretly grieved to see her sister, who had established herself in aneighbouring land, gradually increase in wealth, strength, andbrilliancy, whilst she herself declined as if weakened by age, dismembered, so exhausted, and so sore, that she already felt defeated onthe day when she attempted a supreme effort to regain universal power. And so how bitter were her feelings, how hurt she always felt on seeingher sister recover from the most frightful shocks, resume her dazzling/gala/, and continue to reign over the world by dint of strength andgrace and wit. Never would she forgive it, however well that envied anddetested sister might act towards her. Therein lay an incurable wound, the life of one poisoned by that of the other, the hatred of old bloodfor young blood, which could only be quieted by death. And even if peace, as was possible, should soon be restored between them in presence of theyounger sister's evident triumph, the other would always harbour deepwithin her heart an endless grief at being the elder yet the vassal. 

"However, you may rely on me, " Pierre affectionately resumed. "Thisquarrel between the two countries is certainly a great source of griefand a great peril. And assuredly I will only say what I think to be thetruth about you. At the same time I fear that you hardly like the truth, for temperament and custom have hardly prepared you for it. The poets ofevery nation who at various times have written on Rome have intoxicatedyou with so much praise that you are scarcely fitted to hear the realtruth about your Rome of to-day. No matter how superb a share of praiseone may accord you, one must all the same look at the reality of things, and this reality is just what you won't admit, lovers of the beautiful asyou ever are, susceptible too like women, whom the slightest hint of awrinkle sends into despair. "

Orlando began to laugh. "Well, certainly, one must always beautify thingsa little, " said he. "Why speak of ugly faces at all? We in our theatresonly care for pretty music, pretty dancing, pretty pieces which pleaseone. As for the rest, whatever is disagreeable let us hide it, formercy's sake!"

"On the other hand, " the priest continued, "I will cheerfully confess thegreat error of my book. The Italian Rome which I neglected and sacrificedto papal Rome not only exists but is already so powerful and triumphantthat it is surely the other one which is bound to disappear in course oftime. However much the Pope may strive to remain immutable within hisVatican, a steady evolution goes on around him, and the black world, bymingling with the white, has already become a grey world. I neverrealised that more acutely than at the /fete/ given by PrinceBuongiovanni for the betrothal of his daughter to your grand-nephew. Icame away quite enchanted, won over to the cause of your resurrection. "

The old man's eyes sparkled. "Ah! you were present?" said he, "and youwitnessed a never-to-be-forgotten scene, did you not, and you no longerdoubt our vitality, our growth into a great people when the difficultiesof to-day are overcome? What does a quarter of a century, what does evena century matter! Italy will again rise to her old glory, as soon as thegreat people of to-morrow shall have sprung from the soil. And if Idetest that man Sacco it is because to my mind he is the incarnation ofall the enjoyers and intriguers whose appetite for the spoils of ourconquest has retarded everything. But I live again in my deargrand-nephew Attilio, who represents the future, the generation of braveand worthy men who will purify and educate the country. Ah! may some ofthe great ones of to-morrow spring from him and that adorable littlePrincess Celia, whom my niece Stefana, a sensible woman at bottom, brought to see me the other day. If you had seen that child fling herarms about me, call me endearing names, and tell me that I should begodfather to her first son, so that he might bear my name and once againsave Italy! Yes, yes, may peace be concluded around that coming cradle;may the union of those dear children be the indissoluble marriage of Romeand the whole nation, and may all be repaired, and all blossom anew intheir love!"

Tears came to his eyes, and Pierre, touched by his inextinguishablepatriotism, sought to please him. "I myself, " said he, "expressed to yourson much the same wish on the evening of the betrothal /fete/, when Itold him I trusted that their nuptials might be definitive and fruitful, and that from them and all the others there might arise the great nationwhich, now that I begin to know you, I hope you will soon become!"

"You said that!" exclaimed Orlando. "Well, I forgive your book, for youhave understood at last; and new Rome, there she is, the Rome which isours, which we wish to make worthy of her glorious past, and for thethird time the queen of the world. "

With one of those broad gestures into which he put all his remaininglife, he pointed to the curtainless window where Rome spread out insolemn majesty from one horizon to the other. But, suddenly he turned hishead and in a fit of paternal indignation began to apostrophise youngAngiolo Mascara. "You young rascal!" said he, "it's our Rome which youdream of destroying with your bombs, which you talk of razing like arotten, tottering house, so as to rid the world of it for ever!"

Angiolo had hitherto remained silent, passionately listening to theothers. His pretty, girlish, beardless face reflected the slightestemotion in sudden flashes; and his big blue eyes also had glowed onhearing what had been said of the people, the new people which it wasnecessary to create. "Yes!" he slowly replied in his pure and musicalvoice, "we mean to raze it and not leave a stone of it, but raze it inorder to build it up again. "

Orlando interrupted him with a soft, bantering laugh: "Oh! you wouldbuild it up again; that's fortunate!" he said. 

"I would build it up again, " the young man replied, in the tremblingvoice of an inspired prophet. "I would build it up again oh, so vast, sobeautiful, and so noble! Will not the universal democracy of to-morrow, humanity when it is at last freed, need an unique city, which shall bethe ark of alliance, the very centre of the world? And is not Romedesignated, Rome which the prophecies have marked as eternal andimmortal, where the destinies of the nations are to be accomplished? Butin order that it may become the final definitive sanctuary, the capitalof the destroyed kingdoms, where the wise men of all countries shall meetonce every year, one must first of all purify it by fire, leave nothingof its old stains remaining. Then, when the sun shall have absorbed allthe pestilence of the old soil, we will rebuild the city ten times morebeautiful and ten times larger than it has ever been. And what a city oftruth and justice it will at last be, the Rome that has been announcedand awaited for three thousand years, all in gold and all in marble, filling the Campagna from the sea to the Sabine and the Alban mountains, and so prosperous and so sensible that its twenty millions of inhabitantsafter regulating the law of labour will live with the unique joy ofbeing. Yes, yes, Rome the Mother, Rome the Queen, alone on the face ofthe earth and for all eternity!"

Pierre listened to him, aghast. What! did the blood of Augustus go tosuch a point as this? The popes had not become masters of Rome withoutfeeling impelled to rebuild it in their passion to rule over the world;young Italy, likewise yielding to the hereditary madness of universaldomination, had in its turn sought to make the city larger than anyother, erecting whole districts for people who had never come, and noweven the Anarchists were possessed by the same stubborn dream of therace, a dream beyond all measure this time, a fourth and monstrous Rome, whose suburbs would invade continents in order that liberated humanity, united in one family, might find sufficient lodging! This was the climax. Never could more extravagant proof be given of the blood of pride andsovereignty which had scorched the veins of that race ever since Augustushad bequeathed it the inheritance of his absolute empire, with thefurious instinct that the world legally belonged to it, and that itsmission was to conquer it again. This idea had intoxicated all thechildren of that historic soil, impelling all of them to make their cityThe City, the one which had reigned and which would reign again insplendour when the days predicted by the oracles should arrive. AndPierre remembered the four fatidical letters, the S. P. Q. R. Of old andglorious Rome, which like an order of final triumph given to Destiny hehad everywhere found in present-day Rome, on all the walls, on all theinsignia, even on the municipal dust-carts! And he understood theprodigious vanity of these people, haunted by the glory of theirancestors, spellbound by the past of their city, declaring that shecontains everything, that they themselves cannot know her thoroughly, that she is the sphinx who will some day explain the riddle of theuniverse, that she is so great and noble that all within her acquiresincrease of greatness and nobility, in such wise that they demand for herthe idolatrous respect of the entire world, so vivacious in their mindsis the illusive legend which clings to her, so incapable are they ofrealising that what was once great may be so no longer. 

"But I know your fourth Rome, " resumed Orlando, again enlivened. "It'sthe Rome of the people, the capital of the Universal Republic, whichMazzini dreamt of. Only he left the pope in it. Do you know, my lad, thatif we old Republicans rallied to the monarchy, it was because we fearedthat in the event of revolution the country might fall into the hands ofdangerous madmen such as those who have upset your brain? Yes, that waswhy we resigned ourselves to our monarchy, which is not much differentfrom a parliamentary republic. And now, goodbye and be sensible, rememberthat your poor mother would die of it if any misfortune should befallyou. Come, let me embrace you all the same. "

On receiving the hero's affectionate kiss Angiolo coloured like a girl. Then he went off with his gentle, dreamy air, never adding a word butpolitely inclining his head to the priest. Silence continued tillOrlando's eyes encountered the newspapers scattered on the table, when heonce more spoke of the terrible bereavement of the Boccaneras. He hadloved Benedetta like a dear daughter during the sad days when she haddwelt near him; and finding the newspaper accounts of her death somewhatsingular, worried in fact by the obscure points which he could divine inthe tragedy, he was asking Pierre for particulars, when his son Luigisuddenly entered the room, breathless from having climbed the stairs soquickly and with his face full of anxious fear. He had just dismissed hiscontractors with impatient roughness, giving no thought to his seriousfinancial position, the jeopardy in which his fortune was now placed, soanxious was he to be up above beside his father. And when he was therehis first uneasy glance was for the old man, to make sure whether thepriest by some imprudent word had not dealt him his death blow. 

He shuddered on noticing how Orlando quivered, moved to tears by theterrible affair of which he was speaking; and for a moment he thought hehad arrived too late, that the harm was done. "Good heavens, father!" heexclaimed, "what is the matter with you, why are you crying?" And as hespoke he knelt at the old man's feet, taking hold of his hands and givinghim such a passionate, loving glance that he seemed to be offering allthe blood of his heart to spare him the slightest grief. 

"It is about the death of that poor woman, " Orlando sadly answered. "Iwas telling Monsieur Froment how it grieved me, and I added that I couldnot yet understand it all. The papers talk of a sudden death which isalways so extraordinary. "

The young Count rose again looking very pale. The priest had not yetspoken. But what a frightful moment was this! What if he should reply, what if he should speak out?

"You were present, were you not?" continued the old man addressingPierre. "You saw everything. Tell me then how the thing happened. "

Luigi Prada looked at Pierre. Their eyes met fixedly, plunging into oneanother's souls. All began afresh in their minds, Destiny on the march, Santobono encountered with his little basket, the drive across themelancholy Campagna, the conversation about poison while the littlebasket was gently rocked on the priest's knees; then, in particular, thesleepy /osteria/, and the little black hen, so suddenly killed, lying onthe ground with a tiny streamlet of violet blood trickling from her beak. And next there was that splendid ball at the Buongiovanni mansion, withall its /odore di femina/ and its triumph of love: and finally, beforethe Palazzo Boccanera, so black under the silvery moon, there was the manwho lighted a cigar and went off without once turning his head, allowingdim Destiny to accomplish its work of death. Both of them, Pierre andPrada, knew that story and lived it over again, having no need to recallit aloud in order to make certain that they had fully penetrated oneanother's soul. 

Pierre did not immediately answer the old man. "Oh!" he murmured at last, "there were frightful things, yes, frightful things. "

"No doubt--that is what I suspected, " resumed Orlando. "You can tell usall. In presence of death my son has freely forgiven. "

The young Count's gaze again sought that of Pierre with such weight, suchardent entreaty that the priest felt deeply stirred. He had justremembered that man's anguish during the ball, the atrocious torture ofjealousy which he had undergone before allowing Destiny to avenge him. And he pictured also what must have been his feelings after the terribleoutcome of it all: at first stupefaction at Destiny's harshness, at thisfull vengeance which he had never desired so ferocious; then icy calmnesslike that of the cool gambler who awaits events, reading the newspapers, and feeling no other remorse than that of the general whose victory hascost him too many men. He must have immediately realised that theCardinal would stifle the affair for the sake of the Church's honour; andonly retained one weight on his heart, regret possibly for that womanwhom he had never won, with perhaps a last horrible jealousy which he didnot confess to himself but from which he would always suffer, jealousy atknowing that she lay in another's arms in the grave, for all eternity. But behold, after that victorious effort to remain calm, after that coldand remorseless waiting, Punishment arose, the fear that Destiny, travelling on with its poisoned figs, might have not yet ceased itsmarch, and might by a rebound strike down his own father. Yet anotherthunderbolt, yet another victim, the most unexpected, the being he mostadored! At that thought all his strength of resistance had in one momentcollapsed, and he was there, in terror of Destiny, more at a loss, moretrembling than a child. 

"The newspapers, however, " slowly said Pierre as if he were seeking hiswords, "the newspapers must have told you that the Prince succumbedfirst, and that the Contessina died of grief whilst embracing him for thelast time. . . . As for the cause of death, /mon Dieu/, you know thatdoctors themselves in sudden cases scarcely dare to pronounce an exactopinion--"

He stopped short, for within him he had suddenly heard the voice ofBenedetta giving him just before she died that terrible order: "You, whowill see his father, I charge you to tell him that I cursed his son. Iwish that he should know, it is necessary that he should know, for thesake of truth and justice. " And was he, oh! Lord, about to obey thatorder, was it one of those divine commands which must be executed even ifthe result be a torrent of blood and tears? For a few seconds Pierresuffered from a heart-rending combat within him, hesitating between theact of truth and justice which the dead woman had called for and his ownpersonal desire for forgiveness, and the horror he would feel should hekill that poor old man by fulfilling his implacable mission which couldbenefit nobody. And certainly the other one, the son, must haveunderstood what a supreme struggle was going on in the priest's mind, astruggle which would decide his own father's fate, for his glance becameyet more suppliant than ever. 

"One first thought that it was merely indigestion, " continued Pierre, "but the Prince became so much worse, that one was alarmed, and thedoctor was sent for--"

Ah! Prada's eyes, they had become so despairing, so full of the mosttouching and weightiest things, that the priest could read in them allthe decisive reasons which were about to stay his tongue. No, no, hewould not strike an innocent old man, he had promised nothing, and toobey the last expression of the dead woman's hatred would have seemed tohim like charging her memory with a crime. The young Count, too, duringthose few minutes of anguish, had suffered a whole life of suchabominable torture, that after all some little justice was done. 

"And then, " Pierre concluded, "when the doctor arrived he at oncerecognised that it was a case of infectious fever. There can be no doubtof it. This morning I attended the funeral, it was very splendid and verytouching. "

Orlando did not insist, but contented himself with saying that he alsohad felt much emotion all the morning on thinking of that funeral. Then, as he turned to set the papers on the table in order with his tremblinghands, his son, icy cold with perspiration, staggering and clinging tothe back of a chair in order that he might not fall, again gave Pierre along glance, but a very soft one, full of distracted gratitude. 

"I am leaving this evening, " resumed Pierre, who felt exhausted andwished to break off the conversation, "and I must now bid you farewell. Have you any commission to give me for Paris?"

"No, none, " replied Orlando; and then, with sudden recollection, headded, "Yes, I have, though! You remember that book written by my oldcomrade in arms, Theophile Morin, one of Garibaldi's Thousand, thatmanual for the bachelor's degree which he desired to see translated andadopted here. Well, I am pleased to say that I have a promise that itshall be used in our schools, but on condition that he makes somealterations in it. Luigi, give me the book, it is there on that shelf. "

Then, when his son had handed him the volume, he showed Pierre some noteswhich he had pencilled on the margins, and explained to him themodifications which were desired in the general scheme of the work. "Willyou be kind enough, " he continued, "to take this copy to Morin himself?His address is written inside the cover. If you can do so you will spareme the trouble of writing him a very long letter; in ten minutes you canexplain matters to him more clearly and completely than I could do in tenpages. . . . And you must embrace Morin for me, and tell him that I stilllove him, oh! with all my heart of the bygone days, when I could stilluse my legs and we two fought like devils side by side under a hail ofbullets. "

A short silence followed, that pause, that embarrassment tinged withemotion which precedes the moment of farewell. "Come, good-bye, " saidOrlando, "embrace me for him and for yourself, embrace me affectionatelylike that lad did just now. I am so old and so near my end, my dearMonsieur Froment, that you will allow me to call you my child and to kissyou like a grandfather, wishing you all courage and peace, and that faithin life which alone helps one to live. "

Pierre was so touched that tears rose to his eyes, and when with all hissoul he kissed the stricken hero on either cheek, he felt that helikewise was weeping. With a hand yet as vigorous as a vice, Orlandodetained him for a moment beside his arm-chair, whilst with his otherhand waving in a supreme gesture, he for the last time showed him Rome, so immense and mournful under the ashen sky. And his voice came low, quivering and suppliant. "For mercy's sake swear to me that you will loveher all the same, in spite of all, for she is the cradle, the mother!Love her for all that she no longer is, love her for all that she desiresto be! Do not say that her end has come, love her, love her so that shemay live again, that she may live for ever!"

Pierre again embraced him, unable to find any other response, upset as hewas by all the passion displayed by that old warrior, who spoke of hiscity as a man of thirty might speak of the woman he adores. And he foundhim so handsome and so lofty with his old blanched, leonine mane and hisstubborn belief in approaching resurrection, that once more the other oldRoman, Cardinal Boccanera, arose before him, equally stubborn in hisfaith and relinquishing nought of his dream, even though he might becrushed on the spot by the fall of the heavens. These twain ever stoodface to face, at either end of their city, alone rearing their loftyfigures above the horizon, whilst awaiting the future. 

Then, when Pierre had bowed to Count Luigi, and found himself outsideagain in the Via Venti Settembre he was all eagerness to get back to theBoccanera mansion so as to pack up his things and depart. His farewellvisits were made, and he now only had to take leave of Donna Serafina andthe Cardinal, and to thank them for all their kind hospitality. For himalone did their doors open, for they had shut themselves up on returningfrom the funeral, resolved to see nobody. At twilight, therefore, Pierrehad no one but Victorine to keep him company in the vast, black mansion, for when he expressed a desire to take supper with Don Vigilio she toldhim that the latter had also shut himself in his room. Desirous as he wasof at least shaking hands with the secretary for the last time, Pierrewent to knock at the door, which was so near his own, but could obtain noreply, and divined that the poor fellow, overcome by a fresh attack offever and suspicion, desired not to see him again, in terror at the ideathat he might compromise himself yet more than he had done already. Thereupon, it was settled that as the train only started at seventeenminutes past ten Victorine should serve Pierre his supper on the littletable in his sitting-room at eight o'clock. She brought him a lamp andspoke of putting his linen in order, but he absolutely declined her help, and she had to leave him to pack up quietly by himself. 

He had purchased a little box, since his valise could not possibly holdall the linen and winter clothing which had been sent to him from Parisas his stay in Rome became more and more protracted. However, the packingwas soon accomplished; the wardrobe was emptied, the drawers werevisited, the box and valise filled and securely locked by seven o'clock. An hour remained to him before supper and he sat there resting, when hiseyes whilst travelling round the walls to make sure that he had forgottennothing, encountered that old painting by some unknown master, which hadso often filled him with emotion. The lamplight now shone full upon it;and this time again as he gazed at it he felt a blow in the heart, a blowwhich was all the deeper, as now, at his parting hour, he found a symbolof his defeat at Rome in that dolent, tragic, half-naked woman, draped ina shred of linen, and weeping between her clasped hands whilst seated onthe threshold of the palace whence she had been driven. Did not thatrejected one, that stubborn victim of love, who sobbed so bitterly, andof whom one knew nothing, neither what her face was like, nor whence shehad come, nor what her fault had been--did she not personify all man'suseless efforts to force the doors of truth, and all the frightfulabandonment into which he falls as soon as he collides with the wallwhich shuts the unknown off from him? For a long while did Pierre look ather, again worried at being obliged to depart without having seen herface behind her streaming golden hair, that face of dolorous beauty whichhe pictured radiant with youth and delicious in its mystery. And as hegazed he was just fancying that he could see it, that it was becoming hisat last, when there was a knock at the door and Narcisse Habert entered. 

Pierre was surprised to see the young /attache/, for three dayspreviously he had started for Florence, impelled thither by one of thesudden whims of his artistic fancy. However, he at once apologised forhis unceremonious intrusion. "Ah! there is your luggage!" he said; "Iheard that you were going away this evening, and I was unwilling to letyou leave Rome without coming to shake hands with you. But what frightfulthings have happened since we met! I only returned this afternoon, sothat I could not attend the funeral. However, you may well imagine howthunderstruck I was by the news of those frightful deaths. "

Then, suspecting some unacknowledged tragedy, like a man well acquaintedwith the legendary dark side of Rome, he put some questions to Pierre butdid not insist on them, being at bottom far too prudent to burden himselfuselessly with redoubtable secrets. And after Pierre had given him suchparticulars as he thought fit, the conversation changed and they spoke atlength of Italy, Rome, Naples, and Florence. "Ah! Florence, Florence!"Narcisse repeated languorously. He had lighted a cigarette and his wordsfell more slowly, as he glanced round the room. "You were very welllodged here, " he said, "it is very quiet. I had never come up to thisfloor before. "

His eyes continued wandering over the walls until they were at lastarrested by the old painting which the lamp illumined, and thereupon heremained for a moment blinking as if surprised. And all at once he roseand approached the picture. "Dear me, dear me, " said he, "but that's verygood, that's very fine. "

"Isn't it?" rejoined Pierre. "I know nothing about painting but I wasstirred by that picture on the very day of my arrival, and over and overagain it has kept me here with my heart beating and full of indescribablefeelings. "

Narcisse no longer spoke but examined the painting with the care of aconnoisseur, an expert, whose keen glance decides the question ofauthenticity, and appraises commercial value. And the most extraordinarydelight appeared upon the young man's fair, rapturous face, whilst hisfingers began to quiver. "But it's a Botticelli, it's a Botticelli! Therecan be no doubt about it, " he exclaimed. "Just look at the hands, andlook at the folds of the drapery! And the colour of the hair, and thetechnique, the flow of the whole composition. A Botticelli, ah! /monDieu/, a Botticelli. "

He became quite faint, overflowing with increasing admiration as hepenetrated more and more deeply into the subject, at once so simple andso poignant. Was it not acutely modern? The artist had foreseen ourpain-fraught century, our anxiety in presence of the invisible, ourdistress at being unable to cross the portal of mystery which was forever closed. And what an eternal symbol of the world's wretchedness wasthat woman, whose face one could not see, and who sobbed so distractedlywithout it being possible for one to wipe away her tears. Yes, aBotticelli, unknown, uncatalogued, what a discovery! Then he paused toinquire of Pierre: "Did you know it was a Botticelli?"

"Oh no! I spoke to Don Vigilio about it one day, but he seemed to thinkit of no account. And Victorine, when I spoke to her, replied that allthose old things only served to harbour dust. "

Narcisse protested, quite stupefied: "What! they have a Botticelli hereand don't know it! Ah! how well I recognise in that the Roman princeswho, unless their masterpieces have been labelled, are for the most partutterly at sea among them! No doubt this one has suffered a little, but asimple cleaning would make a marvel, a famous picture of it, for which amuseum would at least give--"

He abruptly stopped, completing his sentence with a wave of the hand andnot mentioning the figure which was on his lips. And then, as Victorinecame in followed by Giacomo to lay the little table for Pierre's supper, he turned his back upon the Botticelli and said no more about it. Theyoung priest's attention was aroused, however, and he could well divinewhat was passing in the other's mind. Under that make-believe Florentine, all angelicalness, there was an experienced business man, who well knewhow to look after his pecuniary interests and was even reported to besomewhat avaricious. Pierre, who was aware of it, could not help smilingtherefore when he saw him take his stand before another picture--afrightful Virgin, badly copied from some eighteenth-century canvas--andexclaim: "Dear me! that's not at all bad! I've a friend, I remember, whoasked me to buy him some old paintings. I say, Victorine, now that DonnaSerafina and the Cardinal are left alone do you think they would like torid themselves of a few valueless pictures?"

The servant raised her arms as if to say that if it depended on her, everything might be carried away. Then she replied: "Not to a dealer, sir, on account of the nasty rumours which would at once spread about, but I'm sure they would be happy to please a friend. The house costs alot to keep up, and money would be welcome. "

Pierre then vainly endeavoured to persuade Narcisse to stay and sup withhim, but the young man gave his word of honour that he was expectedelsewhere and was even late. And thereupon he ran off, after pressing thepriest's hands and affectionately wishing him a good journey. 

Eight o'clock was striking, and Pierre seated himself at the littletable, Victorine remaining to serve him after dismissing Giacomo, who hadbrought the supper things upstairs in a basket. "The people here make mewild, " said the worthy woman after the other had gone, "they are so slow. And besides, it's a pleasure for me to serve you your last meal, Monsieurl'Abbe. I've had a little French dinner cooked for you, a /sole augratin/ and a roast fowl. "

Pierre was touched by this attention, and pleased to have the company ofa compatriot whilst he partook of his final meal amidst the deep silenceof the old, black, deserted mansion. The buxom figure of Victorine wasstill instinct with mourning, with grief for the loss of her dearContessina, but her daily toil was already setting her erect again, restoring her quick activity; and she spoke almost cheerfully whilstpassing plates and dishes to Pierre. "And to think Monsieur l'Abbe, " saidshe, "that you'll be in Paris on the morning of the day after to-morrow!As for me, you know, it seems as if I only left Auneau yesterday. Ah!what fine soil there is there; rich soil yellow like gold, not like theirpoor stuff here which smells of sulphur! And the pretty fresh willowsbeside our stream, too, and the little wood so full of moss! They've nomoss here, their trees look like tin under that stupid sun of theirswhich burns up the grass. /Mon Dieu/! in the early times I would havegiven I don't know what for a good fall of rain to soak me and wash awayall the dust. Ah! I shall never get used to their awful Rome. What acountry and what people!"

Pierre was quite enlivened by her stubborn fidelity to her own nook, which after five and twenty years of absence still left her horrifiedwith that city of crude light and black vegetation, true daughter as shewas of a smiling and temperate clime which of a morning was steeped inrosy mist. "But now that your young mistress is dead, " said he, "whatkeeps you here? Why don't you take the train with me?"

She looked at him in surprise: "Go off with you, go back to Auneau! Oh!it's impossible, Monsieur l'Abbe. It would be too ungrateful to beginwith, for Donna Serafina is accustomed to me, and it would be bad on mypart to forsake her and his Eminence now that they are in trouble. Andbesides, what could I do elsewhere? No, my little hole is here now. "

"So you will never see Auneau again?"

"No, never, that's certain. "

"And you don't mind being buried here, in their ground which smells ofsulphur?"

She burst into a frank laugh. "Oh!" she said, "I don't mind where I amwhen I'm dead. One sleeps well everywhere. And it's funny that you shouldbe so anxious as to what there may be when one's dead. There's nothing, I'm sure. That's what tranquillises me, to feel that it will be all overand that I shall have a rest. The good God owes us that after we'veworked so hard. You know that I'm not devout, oh! dear no. Still thatdoesn't prevent me from behaving properly, and, true as I stand here, I've never had a lover. It seems foolish to say such a thing at my age, still I say it because it's the sober truth. "

She continued laughing like the worthy woman she was, having no belief inpriests and yet without a sin upon her conscience. And Pierre once moremarvelled at the simple courage and great practical common sense of thislaborious and devoted creature, who for him personified the wholeunbelieving lowly class of France, those who no longer believe and willbelieve never more. Ah! to be as she was, to do one's work and lie downfor the eternal sleep without any revolt of pride, satisfied with the onejoy of having accomplished one's share of toil!

When Pierre had finished his supper Victorine summoned Giacomo to clearthe things away. And as it was only half-past eight she advised thepriest to spend another quiet hour in his room. Why go and catch a chillby waiting at the station? She could send for a cab at half-past nine, and as soon as it arrived she would send word to him and have his luggagecarried down. He might be easy as to that, and need trouble himself aboutnothing. 

When she had gone off Pierre soon sank into a deep reverie. It seemed tohim, indeed, as if he had already quitted Rome, as if the city were faraway and he could look back on it, and his experiences within it. Hisbook, "New Rome, " arose in his mind; and he remembered his first morningon the Janiculum, his view of Rome from the terrace of San Pietro inMontorio, a Rome such as he had dreamt of, so young and ethereal underthe pure sky. It was then that he had asked himself the decisivequestion: Could Catholicism be renewed? Could it revert to the spirit ofprimitive Christianity, become the religion of the democracy, the faithwhich the distracted modern world, in danger of death, awaits in orderthat it may be pacified and live? His heart had then beaten with hope andenthusiasm. After his disaster at Lourdes from which he had scarcelyrecovered, he had come to attempt another and supreme experiment byasking Rome what her reply to his question would be. And now theexperiment had failed, he knew what answer Rome had returned him throughher ruins, her monuments, her very soil, her people, her prelates, hercardinals, her pope! No, Catholicism could not be renewed: no, it couldnot revert to the spirit of primitive Christianity; no, it could notbecome the religion of the democracy, the new faith which might save theold toppling societies in danger of death. Though it seemed to be ofdemocratic origin, it was henceforth riveted to that Roman soil, itremained kingly in spite of everything, forced to cling to the principleof temporal power under penalty of suicide, bound by tradition, enchainedby dogma, its evolutions mere simulations whilst in reality it wasreduced to such immobility that, behind the bronze doors of the Vatican, the papacy was the prisoner, the ghost of eighteen centuries of atavism, indulging the ceaseless dream of universal dominion. There, where withpriestly faith exalted by love of the suffering and the poor, he had cometo seek life and a resurrection of the Christian communion, he had founddeath, the dust of a destroyed world in which nothing more couldgerminate, an exhausted soil whence now there could never grow aught butthat despotic papacy, the master of bodies as it was of souls. To hisdistracted cry asking for a new religion, Rome had been content to replyby condemning his book as a work tainted with heresy, and he himself hadwithdrawn it amidst the bitter grief of his disillusions. He had seen, hehad understood, and all had collapsed. And it was himself, his soul andhis brain, which lay among the ruins. 

Pierre was stifling. He rose, threw the window overlooking the Tiber wideopen, and leant out. The rain had begun to fall again at the approach ofevening, but now it had once more ceased. The atmosphere was very mild, moist, even oppressive. The moon must have arisen in the ashen grey sky, for her presence could be divined behind the clouds which she illuminedwith a vague, yellow, mournful light. And under that slumberous glimmerthe vast horizon showed blackly and phantom-like: the Janiculum in frontwith the close-packed houses of the Trastevere; the river flowing awayyonder on the left towards the dim height of the Palatine; whilst on theright the dome of St. Peter's showed forth, round and domineering in thepale atmosphere. Pierre could not see the Quirinal but divined it to bebehind him, and could picture its long facade shutting off part of thesky. And what a collapsing Rome, half-devoured by the gloom, was this, sodifferent from the Rome all youth and dreamland which he had beheld andpassionately loved on the day of his arrival! He remembered the threesymbolic summits which had then summed up for him the whole long historyof Rome, the ancient, the papal, and the Italian city. But if thePalatine had remained the same discrowned mount on which there only rosethe phantom of the ancestor, Augustus, emperor and pontiff, master of theworld, he now pictured St. Peter's and the Quirinal as strangely altered. To that royal palace which he had so neglected, and which had seemed tohim like a flat, low barrack, to that new Government which had broughthim the impression of some attempt at sacrilegious modernity, he nowaccorded the large, increasing space that they occupied in the panorama, the whole of which they would apparently soon fill; whilst, on thecontrary, St. Peter's, that dome which he had found so triumphal, allazure, reigning over the city like a gigantic and unshakable monarch, atpresent seemed to him full of cracks and already shrinking, as if it wereone of those huge old piles, which, through the secret, unsuspected decayof their timbers, at times fall to the ground in one mass. 

A murmur, a growling plaint rose from the swollen Tiber, and Pierreshivered at the icy abysmal breath which swept past his face. And histhoughts of the three summits and their symbolic triangle aroused withinhim the memory of the sufferings of the great silent multitude of poorand lowly for whom pope and king had so long disputed. It all dated fromlong ago, from the day when, in dividing the inheritance of Augustus, theemperor had been obliged to content himself with men's bodies, leavingtheir souls to the pope, whose one idea had henceforth been to gain thetemporal power of which God, in his person, was despoiled. All the middleages had been disturbed and ensanguined by the quarrel, till at last thesilent multitude weary of vexations and misery spoke out; threw off thepapal yoke at the Reformation, and later on began to overthrow its kings. And then, as Pierre had written in his book, a new fortune had beenoffered to the pope, that of reverting to the ancient dream, bydissociating himself from the fallen thrones and placing himself on theside of the wretched in the hope that this time he would conquer thepeople, win it entirely for himself. Was it not prodigious to see thatman, Leo XIII, despoiled of his kingdom and allowing himself to be calleda socialist, assembling under his banner the great flock of thedisinherited, and marching against the kings at the head of that fourthestate to whom the coming century will belong? The eternal struggle forpossession of the people continued as bitterly as ever even in Romeitself, where pope and king, who could see each other from their windows, contended together like falcon and hawk for the little birds of thewoods. And in this for Pierre lay the reason why Catholicism was fatallycondemned; for it was of monarchical essence to such a point that theApostolic and Roman papacy could not renounce the temporal power underpenalty of becoming something else and disappearing. In vain did it feigna return to the people, in vain did it seek to appear all soul; there wasno room in the midst of the world's democracies for any such total anduniversal sovereignty as that which it claimed to hold from God. Pierreever beheld the Imperator sprouting up afresh in the Pontifex Maximus, and it was this in particular which had killed his dream, destroyed hisbook, heaped up all those ruins before which he remained distractedwithout either strength or courage. 

The sight of that ashen Rome, whose edifices faded away into the night, at last brought him such a heart-pang that he came back into the room andfell on a chair near his luggage. Never before had he experienced suchdistress of spirit, it seemed like the death of his soul. After hisdisaster at Lourdes he had not come to Rome in search of the candid andcomplete faith of a little child, but the superior faith of anintellectual being, rising above rites and symbols, and seeking to ensurethe greatest possible happiness of mankind based on its need ofcertainty. And if this collapsed, if Catholicism could not be rejuvenatedand become the religion and moral law of the new generations, if the Popeat Rome and with Rome could not be the Father, the arch of alliance, thespiritual leader whom all hearkened to and obeyed, why then, in Pierre'seyes, the last hope was wrecked, the supreme rending which must plungepresent-day society into the abyss was near at hand. That scaffolding ofCatholic socialism which had seemed to him so happily devised for theconsolidation of the old Church, now appeared to him lying on the ground;and he judged it severely as a mere passing expedient which might perhapsfor some years prop up the ruined edifice, but which was simply based onan intentional misunderstanding, on a skilful lie, on politics anddiplomacy. No, no, that the people should once again, as so many timesbefore, be duped and gained over, caressed in order that it might beenthralled--this was repugnant to one's reason, and the whole systemappeared degenerate, dangerous, temporary, calculated to end in the worstcatastrophes. So this then was the finish, nothing remained erect andstable, the old world was about to disappear amidst the frightfulsanguinary crisis whose approach was announced by such indisputablesigns. And he, before that chaos near at hand, had no soul left him, having once more lost his faith in that decisive experiment which, he hadfelt beforehand, would either strengthen him or strike him down for ever. The thunderbolt had fallen, and now, O God, what should he do?

To shake off his anguish he began to walk across the room. Aye, whatshould he do now that he was all doubt again, all dolorous negation, andthat his cassock weighed more heavily than it had ever weighed upon hisshoulders? He remembered having told Monsignor Nani that he would neversubmit, would never be able to resign himself and kill his hope insalvation by love, but would rather reply by a fresh book, in which hewould say in what new soil the new religion would spring up. Yes, aflaming book against Rome, in which he would set down all he had seen, abook which would depict the real Rome, the Rome which knows neithercharity nor love, and is dying in the pride of its purple! He had spokenof returning to Paris, leaving the Church and going to the point ofschism. Well, his luggage now lay there packed, he was going off and hewould write that book, he would be the great schismatic who was awaited!Did not everything foretell approaching schism amidst that great movementof men's minds, weary of old mummified dogmas and yet hungering for thedivine? Even Leo XIII must be conscious of it, for his whole policy, hiswhole effort towards Christian unity, his assumed affection for thedemocracy had no other object than that of grouping the whole familyaround the papacy, and consolidating it so as to render the Popeinvincible in the approaching struggle. But the times had come, Catholicism would soon find that it could grant no more politicalconcessions without perishing, that at Rome it was reduced to theimmobility of an ancient hieratic idol, and that only in the lands ofpropaganda, where it was fighting against other religions, could furtherevolution take place. It was, indeed, for this reason that Rome wascondemned, the more so as the abolition of the temporal power, byaccustoming men's minds to the idea of a purely spiritual papacy, seemedlikely to conduce to the rise of some anti-pope, far away, whilst thesuccessor of St. Peter was compelled to cling stubbornly to his Apostolicand Roman fiction. A bishop, a priest would arise--where, who could tell?Perhaps yonder in that free America, where there are priests whom thestruggle for life has turned into convinced socialists, into ardentdemocrats, who are ready to go forward with the coming century. Andwhilst Rome remains unable to relinquish aught of her past, aught of hermysteries and dogmas, that priest will relinquish all of those thingswhich fall from one in dust. Ah! to be that priest, to be that greatreformer, that saviour of modern society, what a vast dream, what a part, akin to that of a Messiah summoned by the nations in distress. For amoment Pierre was transported as by a breeze of hope and triumph. If thatgreat change did not come in France, in Paris, it would come elsewhere, yonder across the ocean, or farther yet, wherever there might be asufficiently fruitful soil for the new seed to spring from it inoverflowing harvests. A new religion! a new religion! even as he hadcried on returning from Lourdes, a religion which in particular shouldnot be an appetite for death, a religion which should at last realisehere below that Kingdom of God referred to in the Gospel, and whichshould equitably divide terrestrial wealth, and with the law of labourensure the rule of truth and justice. 

In the fever of this fresh dream Pierre already saw the pages of his newbook flaring before him when his eyes fell on an object lying upon achair, which at first surprised him. This also was a book, that work ofTheophile Morin's which Orlando had commissioned him to hand to itsauthor, and he felt annoyed with himself at having left it there, for hemight have forgotten it altogether. Before putting it into his valise heretained it for a moment in his hand turning its pages over, his ideaschanging as by a sudden mental revolution. The work was, however, a verymodest one, one of those manuals for the bachelor's degree containinglittle beyond the first elements of the sciences; still all the scienceswere represented in it, and it gave a fair summary of the present stateof human knowledge. And it was indeed Science which thus burst uponPierre's reverie with the energy of sovereign power. Not only wasCatholicism swept away from his mind, but all his religious conceptions, every hypothesis of the divine tottered and fell. Only that little schoolbook, nothing but the universal desire for knowledge, that educationwhich ever extends and penetrates the whole people, and behold themysteries became absurdities, the dogmas crumbled, and nothing of ancientfaith was left. A nation nourished upon Science, no longer believing inmysteries and dogmas, in a compensatory system of reward and punishment, is a nation whose faith is for ever dead: and without faith Catholicismcannot be. Therein is the blade of the knife, the knife which falls andsevers. If one century, if two centuries be needed, Science will takethem. She alone is eternal. It is pure /naivete/ to say that reason isnot contrary to faith. The truth is, that now already in order to savemere fragments of the sacred writings, it has been necessary toaccommodate them to the new certainties, by taking refuge in theassertion that they are simply symbolical! And what an extraordinaryattitude is that of the Catholic Church, expressly forbidding all thosewho may discover a truth contrary to the sacred writings to pronounceupon it in definitive fashion, and ordering them to await events in theconviction that this truth will some day be proved an error! Only thePope, says the Church, is infallible; Science is fallible, her constantgroping is exploited against her, and divines remain on the watchstriving to make it appear that her discoveries of to-day are incontradiction with her discoveries of yesterday. What do her sacrilegiousassertions, what do her certainties rending dogma asunder, matter to aCatholic since it is certain that at the end of time, she, Science, willagain join Faith, and become the latter's very humble slave! Voluntaryblindness and impudent denial of things as evident as the sunlight, canno further go. But all the same the insignificant little book, the manualof truth travels on continuing its work, destroying error and building upthe new world, even as the infinitesimal agents of life built up ourpresent continents. 

In the sudden great enlightenment which had come on him Pierre at lastfelt himself upon firm ground. Has Science ever retreated? It isCatholicism which has always retreated before her, and will always beforced to retreat. Never does Science stop, step by step she wrests truthfrom error, and to say that she is bankrupt because she cannot explainthe world in one word and at one effort, is pure and simple nonsense. Ifshe leaves, and no doubt will always leave a smaller and smaller domainto mystery, and if supposition may always strive to explain that mystery, it is none the less certain that she ruins, and with each successive hourwill add to the ruin of the ancient hypotheses, those which crumble awaybefore the acquired truths. And Catholicism is in the position of thoseancient hypotheses, and will be in it yet more thoroughly to-morrow. Likeall religions it is, at the bottom, but an explanation of the world, asuperior social and political code, intended to bring about the greatestpossible sum of peace and happiness on earth. This code which embracesthe universality of things thenceforth becomes human, and mortal likeeverything that is human. One cannot put it on one side and say that itexists on one side by itself, whilst Science does the same on the other. Science is total and has already shown Catholicism that such is the case, and will show it again and again by compelling it to repair the breachesincessantly effected in its ramparts till the day of victory shall comewith the final assault of resplendent truth. Frankly, it makes one laughto hear people assign a /role/ to Science, forbid her to enter such andsuch a domain, predict to her that she shall go no further, and declarethat at this end of the century she is already so weary that sheabdicates! Oh! you little men of shallow or distorted brains, youpoliticians planning expedients, you dogmatics at bay, you authoritariansso obstinately clinging to the ancient dreams, Science will pass on, andsweep you all away like withered leaves!

Pierre continued glancing through the humble little book, listening toall it told him of sovereign Science. She cannot become bankrupt, for shedoes not promise the absolute, she is simply the progressive conquest oftruth. Never has she pretended that she could give the whole truth at oneeffort, that sort of edifice being precisely the work of metaphysics, ofrevelation, of faith. The /role/ of Science, on the contrary, is only todestroy error as she gradually advances and increases enlightenment. Andthus, far from becoming bankrupt, in her march which nothing stops, sheremains the only possible truth for well-balanced and healthy minds. Asfor those whom she does not satisfy, who crave for immediate anduniversal knowledge, they have the resource of seeking refuge in nomatter what religious hypothesis, provided, if they wish to appear in theright, that they build their fancy upon acquired certainties. Everythingwhich is raised on proven error falls. However, although religiousfeeling persists among mankind, although the need of religion may beeternal, it by no means follows that Catholicism is eternal, for it is, after all, but one form of religion, which other forms preceded and whichothers will follow. Religions may disappear, but religious feeling willcreate new ones even with the help of Science. Pierre thought of thatalleged repulse of Science by the present-day awakening of mysticism, thecauses of which he had indicated in his book: the discredit into whichthe idea of liberty has fallen among the people, duped in the last socialreorganisation, and the uneasiness of the /elite/, in despair at the voidin which their liberated minds and enlarged intelligences have left them. It is the anguish of the Unknown springing up again; but it is also onlya natural and momentary reaction after so much labour, on finding thatScience does not yet calm our thirst for justice, our desire forsecurity, or our ancient idea of an eternal after-life of enjoyment. Inorder, however, that Catholicism might be born anew, as some seem tothink it will be, the social soil would have to change, and it cannotchange; it no longer possesses the sap needful for the renewal of adecaying formula which schools and laboratories destroy more and moreeach day. The ground is other than it once was, a different oak mustspring from it. May Science therefore have her religion, for such areligion will soon be the only one possible for the coming democracies, for the nations, whose knowledge ever increases whilst their Catholicfaith is already nought but dust. 

And all at once, by way of conclusion, Pierre bethought himself of theidiocy of the Congregation of the Index. It had condemned his book, andwould surely condemn the other one that he had thought of, should he everwrite it. A fine piece of work truly! To fall tooth and nail on the poorbooks of an enthusiastic dreamer, in which chimera contended withchimera! Yet the Congregation was so foolish as not to interdict thatlittle book which he held in his hands, that humble book which alone wasto be feared, which was the ever triumphant enemy that would surelyoverthrow the Church. Modest it was in its cheap "get up" as a schoolmanual, but that did not matter: danger began with the very alphabet, increased as knowledge was acquired, and burst forth with those /resumes/of the physical, chemical, and natural sciences which bring the veryCreation, as described by Holy Writ, into question. However, the Indexdared not attempt to suppress those humble volumes, those terriblesoldiers of truth, those destroyers of faith. What was the use, then, ofall the money which Leo XIII drew from his hidden treasure of the Peter'sPence to subvention Catholic schools, with the thought of forming thebelieving generations which the papacy needed to enable it to conquer?What was the use of that precious money if it was only to serve for thepurchase of similar insignificant yet formidable volumes, which couldnever be sufficiently "cooked" and expurgated, but would always containtoo much Science, that growing Science which one day would blow up bothVatican and St. Peter's? Ah! that idiotic and impotent Index, whatwretchedness and what derision!

Then, when Pierre had placed Theophile Morin's book in his valise, heonce more returned to the window, and while leaning out, beheld anextraordinary vision. Under the cloudy, coppery sky, in the mild andmournful night, patches of wavy mist had risen, hiding many of thehouse-roofs with trailing shreds which looked like shrouds. Entireedifices had disappeared, and he imagined that the times were at lastaccomplished, and that truth had at last destroyed St. Peter's dome. In ahundred or a thousand years, it would be like that, fallen, obliteratedfrom the black sky. One day, already, he had felt it tottering andcracking beneath him, and had foreseen that this temple of Catholicismwould fall even as Jove's temple had fallen on the Capitol. And it wasover now, the dome had strewn the ground with fragments, and all thatremained standing, in addition to a portion of the apse, where fivecolumns of the central nave, still upholding a shred of entablature, andfour cyclopean buttress-piers on which the dome had rested--piers whichstill arose, isolated and superb, looking indestructible among all thesurrounding downfall. But a denser mist flowed past, another thousandyears no doubt went by, and then nothing whatever remained. The apse, thelast pillars, the giant piers themselves were felled! The wind had sweptaway their dust, and it would have been necessary to search the soilbeneath the brambles and the nettles to find a few fragments of brokenstatues, marbles with mutilated inscriptions, on the sense of whichlearned men were unable to agree. And, as formerly, on the Capitol, amongthe buried remnants of Jupiter's temple, goats strayed and climbedthrough the solitude, browsing upon the bushes, amidst the deep silenceof the oppressive summer sunlight, which only the buzzing fliesdisturbed. 

Then, only then, did Pierre feel the supreme collapse within him. It wasreally all over, Science was victorious, nothing of the old worldremained. What use would it be then to become the great schismatic, thereformer who was awaited? Would it not simply mean the building up of anew dream? Only the eternal struggle of Science against the Unknown, thesearching, pursuing inquiry which incessantly moderated man's thirst forthe divine, now seemed to him of import, leaving him waiting to know ifshe would ever triumph so completely as to suffice mankind, by satisfyingall its wants. And in the disaster which had overcome his apostolicenthusiasm, in presence of all those ruins, having lost his faith, andeven his hope of utilising old Catholicism for social and moralsalvation, there only remained reason that held him up. She had at onemoment given way. If he had dreamt that book, and had just passed throughthat terrible crisis, it was because sentiment had once again overcomereason within him. It was his mother, so to say, who had wept in hisheart, who had filled him with an irresistible desire to relieve thewretched and prevent the massacres which seemed near at hand; and hispassion for charity had thus swept aside the scruples of hisintelligence. But it was his father's voice that he now heard, lofty andbitter reason which, though it had fled, at present came back in allsovereignty. As he had done already after Lourdes, he protested againstthe glorification of the absurd and the downfall of common sense. Reasonalone enabled him to walk erect and firm among the remnants of the oldbeliefs, even amidst the obscurities and failures of Science. Ah! Reason, it was through her alone that he suffered, through her alone that hecould content himself, and he swore that he would now always seek tosatisfy her, even if in doing so he should lose his happiness. 

At that moment it would have been vain for him to ask what he ought todo. Everything remained in suspense, the world stretched before him stilllittered with the ruins of the past, of which, to-morrow, it wouldperhaps be rid. Yonder, in that dolorous faubourg of Paris, he would findgood Abbe Rose, who but a few days previously had written begging him toreturn and tend, love, and save his poor, since Rome, so dazzling fromafar, was dead to charity. And around the good and peaceful old priest hewould find the ever growing flock of wretched ones; the little fledglingswho had fallen from their nests, and whom he found pale with hunger andshivering with cold; the households of abominable misery in which thefather drank and the mother became a prostitute, while the sons and thedaughters sank into vice and crime; the dwellings, too, through whichfamine swept, where all was filth and shameful promiscuity, where therewas neither furniture nor linen, nothing but purely animal life. And thenthere would also come the cold blasts of winter, the disasters of slacktimes, the hurricanes of consumption carrying off the weak, whilst thestrong clenched their fists and dreamt of vengeance. One evening, too, perhaps, he might again enter some room of horror and find that anothermother had killed herself and her five little ones, her last-born in herarms clinging to her drained breast, and the others scattered over thebare tiles, at last contented, feeling hunger no more, now that they weredead! But no, no, such awful things were no longer possible: such blackmisery conducting to suicide in the heart of that great city of Paris, which is brimful of wealth, intoxicated with enjoyment, and flingsmillions out of window for mere pleasure! The very foundations of thesocial edifice were rotten; all would soon collapse amidst mire andblood. Never before had Pierre so acutely realised the derisive futilityof Charity. And all at once he became conscious that the long-awaitedword, the word which was at last springing from the great silentmultitude, the crushed and gagged people was /Justice/! Aye, Justice notCharity! Charity had only served to perpetuate misery, Justice perhapswould cure it. It was for Justice that the wretched hungered; an act ofJustice alone could sweep away the olden world so that the new one mightbe reared. After all, the great silent multitude would belong neither toVatican nor to Quirinal, neither to pope nor to king. If it had covertlygrowled through the ages in its long, sometimes mysterious, and sometimesopen contest; if it had struggled betwixt pontiff and emperor who eachhad wished to retain it for himself alone, it had only done so in orderthat it might free itself, proclaim its resolve to belong to none on theday when it should cry Justice! Would to-morrow then at last prove thatday of Justice and Truth? For his part, Pierre amidst his anguish--havingon one hand that need of the divine which tortures man, and on the othersovereignty of reason which enables man to remain erect--was only sure ofone thing, that he would keep his vows, continue a priest, watching overthe belief of others though he could not himself believe, and would thuschastely and honestly follow his profession, amidst haughty sadness athaving been unable to renounce his intelligence in the same way as he hadrenounced his flesh and his dream of saving the nations. And again, asafter Lourdes, he would wait. 

So deeply was he plunged in reflection at that window, face to face withthe mist which seemed to be destroying the dark edifices of Rome, that hedid not hear himself called. At last, however, he felt a tap on theshoulder: "Monsieur l'Abbe!" And then as he turned he saw Victorine, whosaid to him: "It is half-past nine; the cab is there. Giacomo has alreadytaken your luggage down. You must come away, Monsieur l'Abbe. "

Then seeing him blink, still dazed as it were, she smiled and added: "Youwere bidding Rome goodbye. What a frightful sky there is. "

"Yes, frightful, " was his reply. 

Then they descended the stairs. He had handed her a hundred-franc note tobe shared between herself and the other servants. And she apologised forgoing down before him with the lamp, explaining that the old palace wasso dark that evening one could scarcely see. 

Ah! that departure, that last descent through the black and emptymansion, it quite upset Pierre's heart. He gave his room that glance offarewell which always saddened him, even when he was leaving a spot wherehe had suffered. Then, on passing Don Vigilio's chamber, whence thereonly came a quivering silence, he pictured the secretary with his headburied in his pillows, holding his breath for fear lest he should speakand attract vengeance. But it was in particular on the second and firstfloor landings, on passing the closed doors of Donna Serafina and theCardinal, that Pierre quivered with apprehension at hearing nothing butthe silence of the grave. And as he followed Victorine, who, lamp inhand, was still descending, he thought of the brother and sister who wereleft alone in the ruined palace, last relics of a world which had halfpassed away. All hope of life had departed with Benedetta and Dario, noresurrection could come from that old maid and that priest who was boundto chastity. Ah! those interminable and lugubrious passages, that frigidand gigantic staircase which seemed to descend into nihility, those hugehalls with cracking walls where all was wretchedness and abandonment! Andthat inner court, looking like a cemetery with its weeds and its dampporticus, where remnants of Apollos and Venuses were rotting! And thelittle deserted garden, fragrant with ripe oranges, whither nobody nowwould ever stray, where none would ever meet that adorable Contessinaunder the laurels near the sarcophagus! All was now annihilated inabominable mourning, in a death-like silence, amidst which the two lastBoccaneras must wait, in savage grandeur, till their palace should fallabout their heads. Pierre could only just detect a faint sound, thegnawing of a mouse perhaps, unless it were caused by Abbe Paparelliattacking the walls of some out-of-the-way rooms, preying on the oldedifice down below, so as to hasten its fall. 

The cab stood at the door, already laden with the luggage, the box besidethe driver, the valise on the seat; and the priest at once got in. 

"Oh! You have plenty of time, " said Victorine, who had remained on thefoot-pavement. "Nothing has been forgotten. I'm glad to see you go offcomfortably. "

And indeed at that last moment Pierre was comforted by the presence ofthat worthy woman, his compatriot, who had greeted him on his arrival andnow attended his departure. "I won't say 'till we meet again, ' Monsieurl'Abbe, " she exclaimed, "for I don't fancy that you'll soon be back inthis horrid city. Good-bye, Monsieur l'Abbe. "

"Good-bye, Victorine, and thank you with all my heart. "

The cab was already going off at a fast trot, turning into the narrowsinuous street which leads to the Corso Vittoria Emanuele. It was notraining and so the hood had not been raised, but although the dampatmosphere was comparatively mild, Pierre at once felt a chill. However, he was unwilling to stop the driver, a silent fellow whose only desireseemingly was to get rid of his fare as soon as possible. When the cabcame out into the Corso Vittoria Emanuele, the young man was astonishedto find it already quite deserted, the houses shut, the footways bare, and the electric lamps burning all alone in melancholy solitude. Intruth, however, the temperature was far from warm and the fog seemed tobe increasing, hiding the house-fronts more and more. When Pierre passedthe Cancelleria, that stern colossal pile seemed to him to be receding, fading away; and farther on, upon the right, at the end of the Via di AraCoeli, starred by a few smoky gas lamps, the Capitol had quite vanishedin the gloom. Then the thoroughfare narrowed, and the cab went on betweenthe dark heavy masses of the Gesu and the Altieri palace; and there inthat contracted passage, where even on fine sunny days one found all thedampness of old times, the quivering priest yielded to a fresh train ofthought. It was an idea which had sometimes made him feel anxious, theidea that mankind, starting from over yonder in Asia, had always marchedonward with the sun. An east wind had always carried the human seed forfuture harvest towards the west. And for a long while now the cradle ofhumanity had been stricken with destruction and death, as if indeed thenations could only advance by stages, leaving exhausted soil, ruinedcities, and degenerate populations behind, as they marched from orient tooccident, towards their unknown goal. Nineveh and Babylon on the banks ofthe Euphrates, Thebes and Memphis on the banks of the Nile, had beenreduced to dust, sinking from old age and weariness into a deadlynumbness beyond possibility of awakening. Then decrepitude had spread tothe shores of the great Mediterranean lake, burying both Tyre and Sidonwith dust, and afterwards striking Carthage with senility whilst it yetseemed in full splendour. In this wise as mankind marched on, carried bythe hidden forces of civilisation from east to west, it marked each day'sjourney with ruins; and how frightful was the sterility nowadaysdisplayed by the cradle of History, that Asia and that Egypt, which hadonce more lapsed into childhood, immobilised in ignorance and degeneracyamidst the ruins of ancient cities that once had been queens of theworld!

It was thus Pierre reflected as the cab rolled on. Still he was notunconscious of his surroundings. As he passed the Palazzo di Venezia itseemed to him to be crumbling beneath some assault of the invisible, forthe mist had already swept away its battlements, and the lofty, bare, fearsome walls looked as if they were staggering from the onslaught ofthe growing darkness. And after passing the deep gap of the Corso, whichwas also deserted amidst the pallid radiance of its electric lights, thePalazzo Torlonia appeared on the right-hand, with one wing ripped open bythe picks of demolishers, whilst on the left, farther up, the PalazzoColonna showed its long, mournful facade and closed windows, as if, nowthat it was deserted by its masters and void of its ancient pomp, itawaited the demolishers in its turn. 

Then, as the cab at a slower pace began to climb the ascent of the ViaNazionale, Pierre's reverie continued. Was not Rome also stricken, hadnot the hour come for her to disappear amidst that destruction which thenations on the march invariably left behind them? Greece, Athens, andSparta slumbered beneath their glorious memories, and were of no accountin the world of to-day. Moreover, the growing paralysis had alreadyinvaded the lower portion of the Italic peninsula; and after Naplescertainly came the turn of Rome. She was on the very margin of the deathspot which ever extends over the old continent, that margin where agonybegins, where the impoverished soil will no longer nourish and supportcities, where men themselves seem stricken with old age as soon as theyare born. For two centuries Rome had been declining, withdrawing littleby little from modern life, having neither manufactures nor trade, andbeing incapable even of science, literature, or art. And in Pierre'sthoughts it was no longer St. Peter's only that fell, but allRome--basilicas, palaces, and entire districts--which collapsed amidst asupreme rending, and covered the seven hills with a chaos of ruins. LikeNineveh and Babylon, and like Thebes and Memphis, Rome became but aplain, bossy with remnants, amidst which one vainly sought to identifythe sites of ancient edifices, whilst its sole denizens were coilingserpents and bands of rats. 

The cab turned, and on the right, in a huge gap of darkness Pierrerecognised Trajan's column, but it was no longer gilded by the sun aswhen he had first seen it; it now rose up blackly like the dead trunk ofa giant tree whose branches have fallen from old age. And farther on, when he raised his eyes while crossing the little triangular piazza, andperceived a real tree against the leaden sky, that parasol pine of theVilla Aldobrandini which rises there like a symbol of Rome's grace andpride, it seemed to him but a smear, a little cloud of soot ascendingfrom the downfall of the whole city. 

With the anxious, fraternal turn of his feelings, fear was coming overhim as he reached the end of his tragic dream. When the numbness whichspreads across the aged world should have passed Rome, when Lombardyshould have yielded to it, and Genoa, Turin, and Milan should have fallenasleep as Venice has fallen already, then would come the turn of France. The Alps would be crossed, Marseilles, like Tyre and Sidon, would see itsport choked up by sand, Lyons would sink into desolation and slumber, andat last Paris, invaded by the invincible torpor, and transformed into asterile waste of stones bristling with nettles, would join Rome andNineveh and Babylon in death, whilst the nations continued their marchfrom orient to occident following the sun. A great cry sped through thegloom, the death cry of the Latin races! History, which seemed to havebeen born in the basin of the Mediterranean, was being transportedelsewhere, and the ocean had now become the centre of the world. How manyhours of the human day had gone by? Had mankind, starting from its cradleover yonder at daybreak, strewing its road with ruins from stage tostage, now accomplished one-half of its day and reached the dazzling hourof noon? If so, then the other half of the day allotted to it wasbeginning, the new world was following the old one, the new world ofthose American cities where democracy was forming and the religion ofto-morrow was sprouting, those sovereign queens of the coming century, with yonder, across another ocean, on the other side of the globe, thatmotionless Far East, mysterious China and Japan, and all the threateningswarm of the yellow races. 

However, while the cab climbed higher and higher up the Via Nazionale, Pierre felt his nightmare dissipating. There was here a lighteratmosphere, and he came back into a renewal of hope and courage. Yet theBanca d'Italia, with its brand-new ugliness, its chalky hugeness, lookedto him like a phantom in a shroud; whilst above a dim expanse of gardensthe Quirinal formed but a black streak barring the heavens. However, thestreet ever ascended and broadened, and on the summit of the Viminal, onthe Piazza delle Terme, when he passed the ruins of Diocletian's baths, he could breathe as his lungs listed. No, no, the human day could notfinish, it was eternal, and the stages of civilisation would follow andfollow without end! What mattered that eastern wind which carried thenations towards the west, as if borne on by the power of the sun! Ifnecessary, they would return across the other side of the globe, theywould again and again make the circuit of the earth, until the day shouldcome when they could establish themselves in peace, truth, and justice. After the next civilisation on the shores of the Atlantic, which wouldbecome the world's centre, skirted by queenly cities, there would springup yet another civilisation, having the Pacific for its centre, withseaport capitals that could not be yet foreseen, whose germs yetslumbered on unknown shores. And in like way there would be still othercivilisations and still others! And at that last moment, the inspiritingthought came to Pierre that the great movement of the nations was theinstinct, the need which impelled them to return to unity. Originating inone sole family, afterwards parted and dispersed in tribes, thrown intocollision by fratricidal hatred, their tendency was none the less tobecome one sole family again. The provinces united in nations, thenations would unite in races, and the races would end by uniting in oneimmortal mankind--mankind at last without frontiers, or possibility ofwars, mankind living by just labour amidst an universal commonwealth. Wasnot this indeed the evolution, the object of the labour progressingeverywhere, the finish reserved to History? Might Italy then become astrong and healthy nation, might concord be established between her andFrance, and might that fraternity of the Latin races become the beginningof universal fraternity! Ah! that one fatherland, the whole earthpacified and happy, in how many centuries would that come--and what adream!

Then, on reaching the station the scramble prevented Pierre from thinkingany further. He had to take his ticket and register his luggage, andafterwards he at once climbed into the train. At dawn on the next day butone, he would be back in Paris.