“Santità, from the bersaglieri,” Iulo responded. “That they do, during an hour of each day for the fortification of their legs. From which they run.”
“It is beautiful. And are you going to emulate the bersaglieri?”
“My comrade goes to educate my mind. I go to discipline the physic of him,” the gymnast said.
“Oh, I’m going to help him rub up his classics as far as my poor knowledge lets me, Holiness: that’s all:” the student added.
“Very good indeed,” Hadrian pronounced. “Well now, something is going to happen to you. Go and escort the Secretary of State to the secret chamber.”
Ragna and the young men appeared within the quarter-hour. The Pope was seated; and a couple of Noble Guards stood behind His chair.
“Eminency,” He said, “it is Our will to give these gentlemen the rank of Cavaliere—in English ‘knight’——”
“Nai-tah,” Ragna repeated.
“Your Eminency will cause letters patent to be prepared——”
“But this is the act of a sovereign!”
“And We, having no temporal sovereignty, exercise Our prerogative as Father of princes and kings.” He beckoned the gentlemen to kneel, took a sword from the guard on His left, and struck them on the shoulder in turn, saying “To the honour of God, of His Maiden Mother, and of St. George, We make thee knight. Be faithful. Rise, Sir John. To the honour of God, of His Maiden Mother, and of St. Maurice, We make thee knight. Rise, Sir Iulo.”
The cardinal retired mumbling. In the first antechamber, Sir Iulo cut a caper. “Oh but that I should come to know such a one as this!” he chortled. Sir John went to his own room: opened an interlinear crib of Horace; and could not see one letter.
CHAPTER IX
Hadrian knew that He was becoming confirmed in His pose of director. Not that He was inflated by His exaltation to the apostolature. He was conscious that people, except a few enthusiasts, were become indifferent to religion. He knew the danger of indifference to be so great that it was no time to strain at gnats. He could not trouble about rats in the ship’s hold while the torpedo was approaching. He was thought to share the abominable heresy of Tolstoy, whose works He never would touch with tongs. He saw that most men lived in mist; and preferred it: that most men durst not see clearly, because their business and their social interest would not stand it. He was not absolutely certain that He Himself could see the remedy: but He was certain that blindness was no remedy. So He put forth the evangelic counsels for obedience. “Strip; and obey those” appeared to be sufficient for the present; and He would not fiddle-faddle with human doctrines or empirical experiments. He had the big vision, the seeing eye, the hearing ear, wit, perverseness, daring, and the lonely heart, and the contempt of the world. The effect of His entire freedom of action was to inspire Him physically and mentally with the thrilling vigour of a pentathlete. He had the violent energy of the minute electron in the enormous atom. He felt Himself strong. He knew that His forces were tensely strung; and in their melody He was very glad. Sometimes He caught Himself wondering how long He could maintain the pitch: but from that thought He turned away. It was enough that He was able. He would not spare Himself. The night cometh when no man can work. “Let it come,” he said to Cardinal Sterling: “but, while day lasts, We work.”
A splendid sentence of Mommsen’s bit into his brain. Cæsar ruled as King of Rome for five years and a half . . . ; in the intervals of seven great campaigns, which allowed him to stay not more than fifteen months altogether in the capital of the empire, he regulated the destinies of the world for the present and the future. . . . Precisely because the building was an endless one, the master, as long as he lived, restlessly added stone to stone, with always the same dexterity and always the same elasticity busy at his work, without ever overturning or postponing, just as though there were for him merely to-day and no tomorrow. Thus he worked and created as never did any mortal before or after him; and, as a worker and creator, he still, after two thousand years, lives in the memory of the nations—the first, and withal unique, Imperator Cæsar.—And Julius, also, had been Pontifex Maximus. Hadrian took a white umbrella for a walk as far as the black-lava fort on the Appian Way.
He considered the horrible condition of France and Russia. It was a menace to the world. Of Russia, He could learn nothing new. Thews and Thought together had abolished authority and gone mad in butchery. The information, which He had obtained from the French Cardinals, was not of a rather useful nature. Elements of emotional sentiment and archaic conventionalism rendered their opinions well nigh worthless. They were tolutiloquent in expressing horror at the impiety of mob-rule which had deprived them of the right to military salutes ordained by the Concordat. They made the blood boil by their heart-rending descriptions of holocausts of priests and nuns—earnest heroic enthusiasts absolutely incapable of doing anything really practical in the way of eradicating that demoniality of which they became the victims. Nothing would please Their Eminencies better than to hasten to their distracted native-land, to offer up themselves as martyrs to the devils of their dioceses. They were no cowards—if desire to rush on death be bravery:—but they were picturesque, and dithyrambic,—mainly picturesque, with their long hair and their rabats edged with white beads. That would not do as an essential. Out of the mellay of matter laid before Him, the Pontiff extracted certain points. France, quâ France, no longer was Christian. The Devil was in power. Christians who were able to cross frontiers, did so. Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, received them. England, America, Japan, blockaded Toulon, Brest, Cherbourg. Their liners tapped the coasts; and carried thousands into freedom. Poverty afflicted the emigrants: those left behind were butchers, or subject to butchery. Dom Jaime de Bourbon having perished, the Pope sent for the Duke of Orleans;—and dismissed him with austere disgust. He subsequently withered away. His Holiness gave audience to a score of the French nobility; and spent some days picking the brains of emigrants fortuitously collected. Then, He again convened the French cardinals, and declared the pontifical will. They all were deposed from their episcopal sees, and nominated Apostolic Missionaries. Their charge was the cure, first of the bodies, second of the souls, of Frenchmen everywhere. The Cardinal-Missionary of Paris would go to London with the Cardinal-Archbishop of Pimlico, having powers to draw one million sterling from the pontifical treasure in the Bank of England: which sum, in halves, was to be the nucleus of two funds, an English and a German, for French Christians in their need. Each cardinal-missionary also received a breve authorizing him, and persons delegated by him, to collect money in every Christian country for the said funds. It was not to be a clerical charity. The Lord Mayor of London and the German Emperor were willing to administer it, each independently. Further Their Eminencies were to use their own discretion about adventuring themselves in the diabolical dominion. If they best could serve God there, then in God’s Name, and with God’s Vicegerent’s benediction, let them go: but they most straitly were bidden to keep one only object before them, viz. the service of God through the relief and comfort of His servants. Nothing was to prevent them in that.
The world began to concentrate the corner of its eye on Hadrian. Holland and Belgium fell into the arms of anarchical France. The vigorous bold brilliant young Sultan Ismail, having failed to win Morocco to his Pan-Islamic scheme, was intriguing for an alliance with the other great Muhammedan power, England. His Majesty’s murdered predecessor, by the aid of Germany, had formed an army of a million and a half, full of fanatical valour and the wonderful natural adaptability of the Turk, the rawest recruit of which had a greater fighting-value than was possessed by the conscripts of any other nation. This force was available for active service at fifteen minutes’ notice. The Turkish alliance was worth anyone’s while; and was coveted. Germany had trained the Ottoman squadrons: but was not to profit thereby. Teutonic stolidity had been outwitted by the wily Oriental. Islam could only and only would mate with Islam—as might have been foreseen. The rest of the
continent of Europe ringed frontiers under arms. Each nation feared the other; and all feared France and Russia.
Hadrian watched the diplomatic processes with interest. He knew that England was quite capable of taking care of Herself, with or without the Mussulman. He grasped the theory that Muhammedanism, arising six hundred years after Christ, justified the Wisdom of God in Judaism, proving that the Oriental mind could bear nothing more perfect; and He conceived a sort of sympathy with Islam. His conversations with ambassadors became known in courts, (the King of Prussia’s legate wrote amazing things to the German Emperor:) from courts, descriptions of opinions, tastes, habits, descended until they were discussed in clubs and miscellaneous congeries. Hadrian’s custom of walking about unattended, looking-at the excavations in the Forum, visiting the sick in hospitals, sensuously delighting Himself with the glories of sunset seen from the Pincian Hill, were the themes of common conversation. And when, one evening, He got-in a left hander (from the shoulder) on a socialist, who spat at Him in Borgo Nuovo; and then, (on the filthy beast’s bursting into tears and collapsing with the effects of the blow upon semi-starvation), pressing upon him His pectoral cross and chain, His gold spectacles, and all the coins left in His pocket after a couple of hours in Rome,—then the English race began to find the Pope observable; and English newspapers started columns called Rome Day by Day. How the special correspondents spread themselves! She of the Pall Mall Gazette got the usual exclusive information of the Borgo Nuovo affair; and split nine infinitives in describing the myopic Pontiff narrowing His eyes to slits, groping His way along the colonnades with His fainting assailant; His passionate denunciation of the farce of organized charity, which had let a man become so degraded; His agitation until Cardinal Carvale came running with His spare pair of spectacles; His strangely pathetic thankfulness for the gift of sight which they afforded; His anguish at the defilement of His garment; and His tender invitation to the starving socialist to be His guest in Vatican. All this suited the English temper to a T,—being English. But there was created a profound and perdurable impression. The King of Prussia’s legate wrote more amazing things to the German Emperor. Hadrian became regarded in cabinets and chancelleries as one who cared or strove neither for loss nor gain, neither for life nor death—as the one Potentate who rightly or wrongly knew his own mind—as a Power with whom a reckoning might have to be made. After all, it merely was the effect of simplicity upon complexity, of felinity upon caninity.
He was sitting alone, thinking, and carefully unravelling a woollen antimacassar. It had been crocheted in five bossy strips, three of orange hue and two of grey, alternately arranged. He had unravelled two orange and two grey strips; and had the wool neatly rolled in four balls beside Him. The next time He should go into the City, some little girl would be made happy with two nice balls of grey wool and a lira to buy knitting needles; and, the time after that, another little girl would have three balls of orange wool and a lira also; and pontifical eyes would not be scorched by ghastly antimacassars any more, nor would the kind heart of anyone be wounded. He finished the job; and went to talk to his socialist. That one turned out to be a goldsmith, with the ideals and the brains and the fingers of Cellini, but not the acquisitiveness. Hence straits, socialism, sophistries, starvation. They walked about the sculpture-galleries for coolness; and spoke of Beautiful Things. Hadrian revelled. His guest was a man of taste; and talked-on-a-trot with wonderful gestures, making and moulding ideal images which the mind’s eye could see. They came to the Apoxyomenos: stood: raved; and became dumb, feasting on the lithe majesty of perfect proportion. The artificer first spoke. “Holiness,” he said, “can You see that body and those limbs crucified?”
Hadrian’s mind caught the idea. The splendid forms of the marble seemed to re-arrange themselves in the new pose. His eyes came slowly round to His questioner.
“Yes,” He answered: “but soaring and triumphing, ‘reigning from the tree,’ not drooping and dying—and not the head and bust.” He took the goldsmith’s arm and hurried him to the Antinous of the Belvedere; and began to speak very quickly.
“Sir,” He said, “you will be pleased to stay here; and, with the materials which will be provided, you will make a new cross for Us. The cross will be of the kind called Potent, elongate: the Figure will combine the body and limbs of the Apoxyomenos with the head and bust of the Antinous, but posed as We have described. On the completion of this master-piece, you will be offered an appointment as goldsmith in the pontifical household——”
“Ah, Padrone.”
Hadrian returned to the secret chamber, happy in anticipation of an emblem which would not offend His taste. True, He was glad (in a way) that a tangled life so easily could be made straight: but it was the visionary ideal of Beauty which really inspired joy.
CHAPTER X
That aggregation of intellectually purblind and covetous dullards, who formed the socialistic sect of the King of England’s subjects, presently began in their rough rude way to perpend the Pope of Rome. It had been a moot point with these discontented sentimentalists whether it would or would not be profitable to unite with French and Russian anarchy, and attain their ends that way: but one Julia, in the Salpinx screamed such excruciating tales about slaughtered French babies, that that was “off.” Also, it was remembered that a certain Comrade Dymoke, the only capable fighting man ever possessed by socialism, had been spunged upon for fifteen years by socialistic cadgers, sucked dry, ruined, and cast out, a victim of socialistic jealousy and treachery. In the plans laid for a Social Revolution, towards the end of the nineteenth century, that man had been named commander-in-chief. Now he was not available; and his place was vacant: for a military expert rarely errs into the purlieus of socialism.
But one thing had been done. The Social Democratic Federation had been induced, at the National “Liberal” Club, to coalesce with the Independent “Labour” Party. The coalition called itself the “Liblab Fellowship”: the Salpinx and Reynards’s were its organs; and a parcel of Bobs and Bens and Bills and Bounders its prophets. It concluded that it would score by toadying the Supreme Pontiff. The brainless monster of socialism always was hunting for a brain to direct its forces. By some perverted process, it arrived at the feeling that a Pope, Who could indite the Epistle to All Christians, would be likely to lend Himself to the furtherance of its crude designs on other people’s property. A week later, Cardinal Whitehead called Hadrian’s attention to the current issue of the aforenamed journals, which contained an Open Letter to the Pope praising the “enlightened humanitarianism” of His Holiness’s recent utterance, inviting Him to have courage of His opinions, and to bring His Epistle to (what was called) “a logical conclusion” by a formal authoritative declaration of the doctrine of Equality. Popes, as a rule, do not notice Open Letters. Hadrian, however, had learned from the Pall Mall Gazette that the fashion was for copious artists in words to lecture the Roman Pontiff. He anticipated the being told by that elegant journal that He knew as much about the true inwardness of Catholicism as a cow knows of a clean shirt. But He privately was of opinion that more harm may be done by leaving some things unsaid. But, Love——! Was it possible that He could love, could like (even), hyenas who screeched such ditties as this on the same page:
“They will tax the baked potatoes,
“They will tax our blessed swipes,
“They will tax our blooming hot pea-soup
“The leather, and the tripes,
“They will tax the coster’s donkey,
“They will tax the Derby ’orse
“And they’re going to tax the devil
“When he lives at Charing Crorse.”
Ouf! No. It was quite impossible. Yet——: there were people whom He could like, if not love: people in His Own environment. These He would make easy, happy. To these He could set an example. They, in turn, would do as much for the rank below them: and so on, and so on. Thus, perhaps, by Nature’s own method, might Love be brought down among men. So
with a stern and trenchant rebuff He rebuked presumption. On the following Sunday, a Pontifical Breve was read from every Catholic pulpit in the Kingdom of England at home and beyond the seas. It proclaimed the dogma of Equality as scientifically, historically, and obviously false and impracticable: as a diabolical delusion for the ruin of souls. Hadrian did not soar away in metaphysical intricacies, but confined His argument to the broad highway whereon the ordinary man might walk at ease. Infinite difference, He said, was the note of the Divine Creator’s scheme. Not equality, but diversity, of physique, of intellect, of condition, was man’s birthright. One man was not as good as another: he generally was a great deal better,—as every man well knew. The claim to equality was so indecently unjust that it only could emanate from inferiors who hoped to gain by degrading their superiors. Socialists, who claimed equality, solely were actuated by the lust of improving their own condition at the expense of their brother. That was selfishness, and unchristian, and (by consequence) damnable heresy. The servants of God were bidden to avoid it. The Vicar of Christ repeated Christ’s commands “Love one another—Love your enemies.” Only by Love could be attained the happiness which all desired. That the classes did care for the masses, futile and indolent though their method might be, was undeniable: but the attitude of the masses to the classes was unmitigated hatred. The accident of birth to poverty or wealth was not a fault, for it was inevitable. The principle of Aristos “The Best” was to be upheld. The strength of Aristos was incalculable because it acted through the relations of private life, which were permanent: whereas the political excitement of socialism was essentially ephemeral. Rights, inherited, meritorious, conferred by legitimate authority, were sacred. Only the holders of such rights of their own free will could depose themselves or abdicate their rights; and, as Christians, they were expected to behave themselves Christianly: but to deprive them of such rights, at the will of those who did not confer them, would be an outrage. The socialistic idea, which suggested such iniquity, was essentially selfish and venal. Hadrian severely denounced the newspapers in which the Open Letter to the Pope appeared. He said that the thoughtful reading of a newspaper was one of the most solemn and painful studies in the world, for it was little more than a category of sin and suffering, of incitements to sin, of efforts to acquire filthy lucre honestly and dishonestly. He copiously quoted the advertisements, the Cyclorama page, the Motor Notes page, the Stageland, the Woman’s Letter, and the Leaders, of the one, in order to show that the socialistic outcry by no means was the bitter groan of oppressed poverty, but rather the grumbling vituperation of envious discontented mediocrity anxious to affect an appearance, which was sham and not its own, and to wallow in luxurious conditions which it had not earned. Especially He noted the Socialistic Programme, “We suggest that the nation should own ALL the ships ALL the railways ALL the factories ALL the buildings ALL the land and ALL the requisites of national life and defence,” as a plain declaration that robbery of private property created by individual industry and genius—robbery, pure and unadulterated, was the basis of the socialistic scheme. He denounced the paper as being written for amateur agnostics by dilettante atheists. He pungently derided attempts made, by pseudoscientists of the obsolete school of Haeckel, to popularize among mistaken but serious secularists the science of yesterday and the destructive criticism of the day before that. As for the other paper, He likened it to a cloaca wherein filth of all kinds is committed and collected. The news of the day was reported only in so far as it was susceptible of filthy presentation. Pages were devoted to diffusing refuse from police-courts; and, (under the head of Secret History) to calumnious inventions or distortions of fact connected with any and every man or woman who was not of the dregs of humanity. As a method of earning a living by journalism, this pandering to the basest passions was disgraceful, and damnable in the full sense of the word. Not by such means were the bodies and souls of men to be improved or profited. Not by such means could happiness, here or hereafter, be attained. “Let men raise themselves if they will; and let each man help himself by helping his brother to the utmost: there shall be no limit to your resurrection, well-beloved sons, if ye rise, not on other men but, upon your own dead selves,” the Pope concluded.
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