Hadrian the Seventh

by Frederick Rolfe

  “Another point occurs to me,” Talacryn went on. “Supposing that we sing requiems for Non-Catholics, we should imply that one religion is as good as another.”

  “I guess I deny the consequence,” Grace retorted. “Of course people would infer all sorts of things which ought not to be inferred: but I can’t see that that need concern us.”

  “One might imperil the salient and sacred aloofness which marks off God’s Work from man’s work, the Church’s unmistakeable contrast to the whole world,” said the Cardinal of St. Nicholas-in-the-Jail-of-Tully.

  “And her complete discordance from the world by all the difference which separates the Divine Institution from the human, the Church of God from the churches of men,” Saviolli appended.

  “All the same I think I go with the Cardinal of St. Cosmas and St. Damian,” said Mundo.

  “There would not be any real ground,” Sterling continued, “for suspecting one of disloyalty to the Church, if one were to recognize the Invincibly Ignorant as the ‘other sheep’ which His Holiness mentioned in His first Epistle. One is not going to take part in their worship, or frequent their services: because one knows better. And one is not going to accept the principle of a conglomerate Church of the ‘common-christianity’ type any more than one is going to accept an Olympos of gods for a Divinity. But one confesses that one can see no reason why one should not pray for outsiders, offer Mass for outsiders, recognize them in short, as His Holiness seems to ordain. They don’t know us; and, naturally, they invent a caricature of us, as things are. Yes, on the whole, perhaps one ought to support Carvale.”

  “Well: if we’re taking sides, I’ll follow you,” said Semphill.

  Their Eminencies rose and surrounded Cardinal Carvale. Talacryn was left alone at the other end of the seat; and Percy moved a few inches nearer to the Pope.

  “Now Percy?” said Talacryn with invitation. The youngest cardinal shook his grand head in the negative.

  “And will not you yourself join the majority?” Hadrian inquired of the single minority.

  “I shall follow your Holiness,” Talacryn answered. The others looked their interest.

  The Pope smiled. “Note please, that We are not uttering infallible dogma, but the fallible opinion of a private clergyman, weak-kneed perhaps, or worldly. We know no more than this,—that Christ died for all men.” Rising He began to throw on his white cloak, for it was the hour before sunset and the air was cooler. “Eminencies,” He continued, “We learn much from you. This discussion was an accident, due to Our negligence. The case which We intended to submit to you was not the case of an outsider: but, while you have been talking, We have reached the solution of Our problem by another road. We request you immediately to publish the news that to-morrow at ten o’clock the Supreme Pontiff will sing a requiem in St. Peter’s for the repose of the soul of Umberto the Fearless King of Italy.”

  An English Catholic painter came to paint the Pope’s portrait. Hadrian knew him for a vulgar and officious liar: detested him; and, at the first application, had refused to sit to him. His Holiness was not at all in love with His Own aspect. It annoyed Him because it just missed the ideal which He admired; and He did not want to be perpetuated. Also, He loathed the cad’s Herkomeresque-cum-Camera esque technique and his quite earthy imagination: from that palette, the spiritual, the intellectual, the noble, could not come. But, He thought of the man’s pinched asking face, of his dreadful nagging wife, of his children—of the rejection of all his pictures by the Academy this year, of the fact that he was being supplanted by younger grander minds. Ousted from livelihood! Horrible! Love your enemies! Ouf! The Pontiff would give six sittings of one hour each, on condition that He might read all the time.

  The privilege alone was an inestimable advertisement. Alfred Elms looked upon himself as likely to become the fashion. Hadrian sat in the garden for six siestas; and He read in Plato’s Phaidon, which is the perfection of human language, until His lineaments were composed in an expression of keen gentle fastidious rapture. Elms’s professional efforts at conversation were annulled quietly and incisively. The Pope blessed him and handfuls of rosaries at the end of every sitting. Sometimes His Holiness was so elated with the beauty of the Greek of His book, that He even was able with a little self-compulsion to utter a few kindly and intelligent criticisms of the painter’s work. That was startlingly real, mirror-like. The varied whiteness of marble and flannel and vellum and the healthy pallor of flesh, gained purity from the notes of the reddish-brown hair and the translucent violet of the amethyst. The clean light of the thing was admirably rendered. The painter could delineate, and tint with his hand, that which his eyes beheld, with blameless accuracy. What his eyes did not see, the soul, the mind, the habit of his model, he as accurately omitted. Hadrian made him glad with a compliment on the perfection of the connection between his directive brain and his executive fingers. At the end of the last sitting also He gave him two hundred pounds, and the picture, and a written indulgence in the hour of death. The painter went away quite happy, and with his fortune made. He never knew how vehemently his work was detested, how profoundly he himself was scorned.

  August was deliciously warm. The Pope moved the Court for a few weeks to the palace on the Nemorensian lake which the Prince of Cinthyanum lent. It was a vast barrack of a palace. Although three sides of it actually were in the little city, and a public thoroughfare pierced its central archway, yet it suited Hadrian admirably. Approached through numerous antechambers and picture-galleries, there was a huge room frescoed in simulation of a princely tent. Here they placed a throne for receptions. There was a great balcony high above the porch, facing a two-mile avenue of elms. When the faithful congregated (as they often did) the Pope could shew Himself. There were innumerable chambers of state and private suites, where the curial cardinals took up their abode. But high on the fourth side of the palace, with no access except by several little private stairs, Hadrian found an apartment of five small rooms which was quite secluded. From its windows, (the palace stood on the crest of the cliff) a stone might be dropped into the fathomless lake three hundred feet below; and, beyond the lake, the eye soared to Diana’s Forest of oaks and the spurs of the Alban Mount. A private stair and passage led to the incomparable (and almost unknown) gardens, which crowned the rocks with verdure and descended by winding paths to the mirrored waters of the lake. Here the Pontiff established Himself, with the noise of the world of men and its limitations on the one side; and, on the other, quiet and illimitable space wherein the soul might spread wings and explore the empyrean.

  Half-way down the cliff, a little ruined shrine stood in the garden. The broken grey-brown tracery of the window framed an exquisite panorama of water and distant hills, brilliantly blue and green. The nook stood away from the main path; and was quite enclosed by sun-kissed foliage, and canopied with vines and ivy. Hadrian was spending a morning here, alone with cigarettes and the Epinikia of Pindaros and His thoughts. The air was fragrant with the perfume of southernwood and the generous sun. He rested in a low cane-chair, soaking Himself in light and peace. His eyes were turned to the far distant shore where the great grove of ilex cast deep tralucid shadows in the water. A tiny slip of pink shot from sunlight to shade: another followed: two tiny splashes of silver spray arose, and vanished: two blue-black dots appeared in the rippled mirror. Hadrian envied the young swimmers. He remembered all the wild unfettered boundless sensuous joy of only a little while ago. Was the fisherman still down there with his boat and the brown boy who rowed it? He wondered what the world would say if the Pope were to swim in sunlit Nemi—or in moonlit. Ah, the mild tepidity of moonlit water, the clean cold caress of moonlit air! Not that He cared jot or tittle for what the world might say—personally. No. But—— No. If He were to ask for the use of the boat, tongues would clack. And He could not go alone with the deliberate intention. Still—didn’t Peter swim in Galilee. Weren’t the Attendolo gardens private? Some night He might stroll down to the shore: the water
was fathomless at once: there need be no wading with the ripples horribly creeping up one’s flesh—Yaff! But the toads on the path, and the lizards and the serpents in the grass—oh no. Then, thus it must be: the Pope must not go to seek His pleasure: if God should deign to afford His Vicegerent the recreation of swimming, an opportunity would be provided. Otherwise——

  Little footsteps pattered down the glade. His retreat was about to be invaded.

  Three children burst through the shrubs—and stood transfixed. They were a couple of black-eyed black-haired girls, and a very pale-coloured very delicately-articulated slim and stalwart baby-boy with dark-star-like eyes and brows superbly drawn. All Hadrian’s fearful terror of children paralyzed Him. These limpid glances made Him feel such a hackneyed old sinner. But He shewed no outward tremor, looking gently and genially at His visitors, and wondering what (in the name of all the gods) He ought to say or do. Three nurses and an athletic tailor-made lady added their presence.

  “A thousand pardons, sir,” a nurse exclaimed;—“O Santissimo Padre!”—Six knees flopped on the ground.

  “Missy,” the boy announced, “I have found a white father. Why have I seen a white father before never?” His utterance was very deliberate, and his English quite devoid of accented syllables.

  The tailor-made lady rose to the occasion with an intuition which only could be feminine and a self-possession which only could be English. She bowed to the Pope, saying “Your Holiness will pardon the intrusion. The children escaped us at the fork in the path——”

  “But it is a pleasure,” Hadrian hypocritically put in: “it is a pleasure,” He repeated, seeing that she was about to withdraw her charges; “and it would be a greater pleasure to know the names of these little ones.”

  “The Prince Filiberto, the Princess Yolanda, and the Princess Mafalda,” the lady replied: “the Queen is giving a children’s picnic in Lady Demochéde’s woods; and we took the liberty of trespassing here in search of wild-flowers. Of course we had no idea——”

  “Missy,” said the boy again, “I wish to speak to this white father.” He was standing with his exquisite fair little legs wide-apart, his little body splendidly poised; and his glance was the glance of a young lion.

  “Is it permitted?” Hadrian inquired of the governess.

  “Oh surely;” she assented with perfection of manner.

  “I wish to ask this white father whether he can speak English words like me;” the youngster proclaimed, keeping at a distance until he had reconnoitred the position.

  “Don’t be silly ’Berto, of course he can. This is Papa Inglese, I think;” said the Princess Yolanda with the daintiest air of regality. She was a very stately little person, and quite aware of herself; and her great black eyes were wonderful. Her younger sister sucked a silent thumb.

  “Then I wish to know whether I may kiss that ring—the big one. I always kiss rings when fathers wear them,” her brother continued. He quite ingenuously offered his little token of regard, giving reasons for the same in the manner of one who is too noble to take advantage of ignorance or even of blind good-nature. Hadrian had not the faintest notion of what to say. He never in His life had spoken to a Royal Highness; and the childhood of the child had tied His tongue. He would not have hesitated for one moment to converse with an angel: indeed He would have been rather more than garrulous. But with a human baby boy! He extended His right hand.

  The princelet took it: looked at it: looked from the great gold Little-Peter-in-a-Boat to the great amethyst; and pondered them. “I think I will kiss them both;” he said at length. The full soft rose-leaf of his lips flitted from the pontifical to the episcopal ring. He lifted his bright head; and boldly looked into the Pope’s eyes, with a smile disclosing the most wonderful little teeth—with a gaze which told of a pact of friendship sealed.

  “God bless you, little boy;” said the Apostle.

  “Oh, He can speak my English words!” the youngster shouted with delight. “Yolanda, come and kiss these rings, and hear Him say ‘God bless you, little boy’ again—no,—girl I mean, Missy dear;” with a side-look at the governess.

  The princess came forward like a lady; and paid her respects. Her brother intently watched.

  “God bless you, Princess,” said the Apostle.

  “Oh but listen,” the Prince of Naples shrieked, jumping up and down; “He knows all the words ezattually, just like my own father. He said to me ‘boy,’ and to Yolanda ‘princess.’ Now go you too, Mafalda, and I will listen again.”

  The tiny maid went. “God bless you, little Princess;” the Apostle said.

  “That is right,” the boy cried: “he said ‘little princess’ because——” There he stopped a moment. Then, “White Father, why for have You—no,—why did not You say ‘prince’ to me? I am Prince Filiberto, aged five, Quirinale, Rome. Do You know that, White Father?”

  “Yes, Prince. But you are a boy.”

  “Well, I think so. Also I am a sailor, like Uncle Luigi. Cannot You see that, White Father? Do You know what thing is a sailor?” He stood by the chair, leaning against Hadrian’s knee, deliciously rosily maritime in white flannel.

  “Oh yes: We know many sailors:” the Pope responded.

  “Are they English?” The question possessed importance. His Royal Highness evidently was by way of verifying certain information.

  “Most of them are English.”

  “My father says that all good sailors are English, or like English.”

  “And are you a good sailor?” The Pope switched the argument away from the Majesty of Italy, for reasons.

  “But yes, I am very good this morning. But I always am a sailor—even when I am—not quite good;” the candid baby said with a little hesitation.

  “Do you like being ‘not quite good’?”

  “Oh but yes—I should say, sometimes. I think I like it then: but not now. No—I do not like being ‘not quite good.’ ” He settled the matter like that; and nobly lifted himself upon it.

  “Won’t you try to be a good sailor?” (Hadrian hated Himself for preaching. But such a chance! To make a white mark on the heir to a throne!)

  “But of course I always try,—except——” and there seemed to be the difficulty. The child drooped a little.

  “You always do try to be a good sailor—and to give no trouble——”

  “Give no trouble? What not to father?” the prince inquired, as though the very notion clashed with his preconceived idea of the uses of fathers.

  “No: not to your father.”

  “Nor to Missy?” The round face became a little longer.

  “No: never to ladies on any account.”

  “To whom then may I give trouble, if I may not give it to father nor to Missy?” He felt that he had put a poser.

  “Don’t give it.”

  “What not to anybody?” This was a matter, a dreadful matter, which anyhow must be pursued to the bitter end.

  “Not to anybody.”

  The child’s great brave eyes considered the Apostle attentively: then they wandered to his sisters, to the governess, to the nurses; and came back again. Hadrian returned his gaze, very gently, quite inflexibly. The boy must learn his lesson now. Prince Filiberto pondered the novel doctrine from all his little points of view; and at last he grasped the consequence like a man.

  “Ah well, then I suppose I had better keep it myself. I am sorry that I gave it to you, Missy, yesterday.”

  Hadrian experienced the strangest-possible rigour of the throat. Another moment and something in Him would have spoiled all. He rose: blessed His visitors; and passed swiftly away through the trees to the left.

  “Missy, I am liking that white father. When shall I see Him again?” came after Him in the incomparable voice of innocence.

  He quickly went up the winding path, along the private passage, up the stairs to the terrace. He dragged a chair out there and sat down. “God!” He exclaimed aloud, with tremendous expiration, to the wide expanse of water and
earth and sky which yawned before Him. Tears welled in His eyes: and the constriction of His throat was relaxed. He took His handkerchief from His sleeve. Thank heaven He was alone! And He became calm and analytical and infinitely happy. Verses of Meleagros of Gadara streamed through his mind:

  “Our Lady of desire brought me to thee, Theokles,

  “me to thee;

  “and delicate-sandalled Love hath stripped and strewed me

  “at thy feet:

  “a lightning-flash of his sweet beauty!

  “flames from his eyes he darteth!

  “Hath Love revealed a Child who fightelh with thunderbolts?

  “the splendour of twin fires did scorch me through and through.

  “one flame indeed was from the sun, and one was love

  “from a child’s eyes.”

  His ecstasy was admiration of the lovely little person and the noble little soul. The clean and vivid candour, the delicate proportion, the pure tint, aroused in Him a desire to own. The frank self-hood, the unerring truth, the courageous tranquillity of self-renunciation, aroused in Him a sense of emulation. He, the Supreme Pontiff, was prostrate before the seraphic majesty of the Child. And, as though a curtain had been lifted, He had a peep into the human heart. Now, He thought that He could see and understand one cause, perhaps the chief cause, of human society—the ability to say “This is mine, mine: for I did it.” He began to understand that the human mind must have external as well as internal operation—and much beside. As for Himself, He was making experiment of the first personal emotion of undiluted enjoyment of human society which He could remember. “Then I can love, after all;” He reflected. Though He mixed freely and absolutely independently with all men, yet, in the tender inner soul of Him, He shrank more shudderingly than ever from the contact. Every single act of urbanity, of courtesy, was a violent effort to Him. His feeling for His fellow-creatures was repugnance pure and simple. But, in the case of this yellow-haired mannikin, there was a difference. He would like to own such a radiant little piece of the Divine-Human as that fair Prince Filiberto. He would appreciate the honour and the joy of tending such a treasure. But He could not seek; and it never had been offered. Perhaps He would shrink if it were offered. That was His peculiar nature. Had He ever wished to exert for intimate relations with anyone? No: plainly no. He was a thing apart. More, He was a thing to be avoided. He remembered how many times he aimlessly had strolled through London, watching His species gambolling in Piccadilly, or at the Marble Arch on a Sunday where the fierce lanky spiky sallow Anarchist raved, and the coy Catholic barrister cracked correct jests out of a shiny black exercise-book, and the bright-eyed clean Church-Army youth spoke with genuine conviction. He had moved through partner-seeking mobs everywhere, lazily, vigilantly, studiously: yet no one ever had addressed him. He was seen. He was avoided. Yes, He was a thing apart. That was His trouble. And—what did the boy say?—“I had better keep it myself.” The content of that saying was to Hadrian just like a thunderbolt. It was Love—yes, that was quintessential Love, from the clear eyes and the stainless lips of childhood,—to keep one’s troubles oneself. For in that way one relieved others. And the Servant of the servants of God must—— He continued to sit in the sunlight in a sort of rapture. The lake and the hills and the turquoise sky faded from His vision. He was alone with His thoughts, His ideals, His soul. . . . After the noon-angelus, He went in to His solitary meal. Later in the afternoon, when He had slept and washed, and put on fresh garments, He descended to chat with His court. His demeanour was observed to be more warm, more human. His eyes had an unusual and more usual glow. He did not seem to be so very very far away.