Hadrian the Seventh

  They were by the door. The Black Pope had one hand under the blue-linen curtain, and was fumbling for the handle. The White Pope quickly clinched His admonition. “Don’t pretend to be Superior Persons. Don’t give yourselves such airs. Don’t gad about in hansom cabs quite so much. Don’t play billiards in public-houses. Don’t nurture jackals. Try to be honest. Don’t oppress the poor. Don’t adore the rich. Don’t cheat either. Tell the truth: or try to. Love all men, and learn to serve. And don’t be vulgar.”

  Father St. Albans had got the door open. He looked like a flat female with chlorosis. He was green and quite speechless. But he bowed profoundly as the decurial chamberlains came forward to escort him through the antechambers.

  “Benedicat te Omnipotens Deus. . . . Go in peace and pray for Us,” purred the Supreme Pontiff, rubbing His left hand with His pocket handkerchief and returning to the window.

  CHAPTER XV

  Hadrian was mooning about in the Treasury one morning, wondering why people will persist in using diamonds by themselves instead of as a setting for coloured gems: grieving at the excessive ugliness of most modern goldsmiths’ monstrous work: turning with disgust from huge brazenly vulgar masses of bullion shaped like bad dreams of chalices, pyxes, staves, croziers, mitres, tiaras, dishes, jugs, (not beds), and basons. He bathed in the beauty of sea-blue bends, corundrums, catseyes, and chalcedonyx. A vast rose-alexandrolith mysteriously changed from myrtle-green to purple as He turned it from sun-light to candle-light. He moved to a great round table-moonstone, transparent as water one way: brilliantly clouded with the ethereal blue of a summer-morning sky, the other. These two stones had not the blatant ostentation, the inevitable noisy obviousness of rubies, emeralds, diamonds and pearls. They were apart, chaste, recondite, serene, and permanent. He enjoyed them. His glance again passed over the flaring cupboards. A plan began to crawl out of one of his brain-cells. He took the alexandrolith and the moonstone in His two hands; and sat down profoundly meditating, gazing into the lovely silent mystery in the stones. So He sat for half-an-hour, while His plan unfolded its convolutions. To Him entered Cardinal Semphill, rather ruddier than a cherry, carrying the day-before-yesterday’s Times. “Holiness,” he said with some animation, “I hope I don’t interrupt You. Thank God we’ve got a King of England at last!” He read from the paper, “ ‘The King’s Majesty has been graciously pleased to send autograph letters to all the European sovereigns and prime ministers inviting them to assemble with the President of the United States and the Japanese Emperor at Windsor Castle, in order to concert measures for terminating the present lamentable condition of affairs.’ ”

  “That explains the length of the Japanese Emperor’s visit to England, and Roosevelt’s arrival last week. Yes, it’s very king-like. Statesmanship is all very well up to a point. Then, its force seems to fade; and kingship’s chance comes. Lucky England to have a real King!”

  “I thought Your Holiness would be pleased. And now what will be the outcome?”

  “Who knows?” Hadrian thought for a minute; and then mounted an imaginary pulpit, and preached like a purposeful literary man. “First, they’ll quarrel terribly for certain: because five of them are distinct entities, and the others (the nonentities) out of sheer terror will make themselves a nuisance. Secondly, when the nonentities have been reassured, or squashed, the five entities will have to reach a common ground. If they do that, We shall be very much surprised. Thirdly, supposing an agreement to have been reached, Their Majesties and the President will have to get it constitutionally confirmed. Autocracy is supposed to be dead; and the usual constitutional farce will have to be performed.”

  “Why do You say ‘autocracy is supposed to be dead,’ Holy Father?”

  “Oh because the euphuism ‘constitutional monarchy’ has taken its place. The twentieth century doesn’t like the word Autocrat; and pretends that the thing does not exist. But it does: not in the old hereditary form: but Aristos, the Strong Man, invariably dominates. It’s in the order of nature. And Demos likes him for it, only the silly thing won’t say so. That’s all. Semphill, you might send a marconigraph to the Earl Marshal. We require news of this Congress of Windsor at least once a day.”

  The Pope returned the gems to the beneficiato in attendance: took the Times with Him and went across the basilica into the gardens. A tramontana bit Him to the bone; and He tightly wrapped His cloak round Him, facing the wind and the blinding glare of the sun. He briskly walked a couple of miles, until blood-warmth stung his mind into activity. By Leo IV.’s ruined wall, He met Cardinal Carvale engaged in a similar exercise, his delicate cheeks fervid and flushed, and his grave eyes blazing. Good priests generally retain their bloom through the full five-and-forty years of youth. Hadrian invited his companionship and conversation for the return to Vatican. They were a pair, these two medium-sized ■dim athletic men, the one in white and the other in vermilion, both very brilliant in the sunlight, with vivid aspect and vivid gait. They looked like men who really were alive. Their discourse was just the vigorous rather epigrammatic talk of wholesome well-bred men. As they turned into the court of the Belvedere, His Eminency said “Oh, by the bye, Holy Father, perhaps I ought to tell you that they cannot understand at St. Andrew’s College why You never have been to see them.”

  “But you understand:” Hadrian promptly put in.

  “Well—yes:” the cardinal responded. In his candid gaze there was intuition, sympathy—and something else.

  The Pontiff read it. “When did they tell you that?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Oh. Do you often go there?”

  “About once a fortnight, Holiness.”

  “Carvale, do you like going there?”

  “—Yes, on the whole I do. The youngsters are glad to see me; and the older men” (a radiant smile disclosed his exquisite teeth as he spread an arm) “—they like vermilion to take note of them. And I think it does my soul good” (he spoke gravely) “to visit the old place. I put it off as long as I could: I would have been glad to forget the horrors. Strange to say, I forgot them after I had been there a few times.”

  Hadrian’s heart informed Him. He understood it all quite well. “Carvale let us go to St. Andrew’s now. We can get there in time for dinner.”

  The cardinal instantly looked happy; and the two continued to walk swiftly through the City, going by Tordinona, Orso, Piazza Colonna and the Trevi Fountain. As they passed the crucifix at the corner of an alley, Hadrian bowed. His Eminency did not. “Why don’t you salute our Divine Redeemer?” the Pope inquired.

  “Well of course I always raise my hat to The Lord in the tabernacle when I pass a church——”

  “And you bow to Us, and even to Our handwriting: but—— Listen, Carvale: ‘It is idolatry to talk about Holy Church and Holy Father, to bow to fallible sinful man, if you do not bend knee and lip and heart to every thought and image of God manifest as Man——’ Is that explicit enough? Well; it was a protestant parson who wrote it—one Arnold of Rugby.”

  “He was right, Holiness;” said the cardinal turning back and bowing.

  They walked on in silence. The Pope was doing a thing which He could not away with. It might be thought that He, a former student, was come to the college (which had expelled Him) to swagger. Of course it would be thought. Let it be thought. Then the hateful memory of every nook and corner, in which, as a student, He had been so fearfully unhappy, surged in His mind: the gaudy chapel where He had received this snub, the ugly refectory where He received that, the corridor where the rector had made coarse jests about His mundity to obsequious grinners, the library where He had found impossible dust-begrimed books, the stairs up which He had staggered in lonely weakness, the dreadful gaunt room which had been His homeless home, the altogether pestilent pretentious bestial insanity of the place—He knew and winced at every stone of it; and wrenched Himself from retrospection. They were going up the narrow Avigonesi. Fifty yards in front, a double file of students in violet cassocks and black s
opranos preceded them. A little group of ragamuffins shouted cattivi verbi at the file; and one caught hold of the conventional sleeve of a student’s soprano which was streaming in the wind. Cheap cloth rent at a tug. The ragamuffin rushed off with his spoils. But the bereft one furiously followed: retrieved his streamer; and clouted a head which howled, resuming his place in the camerata all unconscious that his act had been observed.

  “History repeats itself:” the Pope said, and laughed.

  Carvale smiled in reply “Fancy remembering that.”

  “We forget no one thing of those days,” said Hadrian: “also, the rape of Your Eminency’s streamer was effected on one of the only two days when We were permitted to accompany the others to the University. Naturally We remember that. Besides, Carvale, you were in such a blind and naked rage; and We had deemed you such a virtuous little mouse.”

  “Was I?” the cardinal said. “One had to lie low, as a rule: but sometimes the old Adam——”

  “We owe Our one moment of mirth in St. Andrew’s College to that old Adam.”

  “I had to keep in coll. for a week though, afterwards. The boy’s father was waiting for me with a knife.”

  “Yes. Italy had not got over her taste for steel.”

  “Will she ever get over it, Holiness?”

  “Of course She will—when She has killed you—or Us. Nothing but a tragedy will break a habit of centuries:” the Pope said, as He rang the bell at the door of the college.

  The old porter Aurelio opened, gasped, dropped on his knees. Hadrian and Cardinal Carvale entered. A long corridor extended right and left. In front, on the right, a wide stone stair ascended: on the left, another stair descended a little way to a glass door leading to a shabby shrubbery. Some students were on the stairs: others were in the shrubbery: two or three lingered in the corridor. At the Pontiff’s entrance they all inquisitively turned, gasped, and flopped. It was awfully funny. They resembled violet hares on their forms, rigid, goggle-eyed, ready-to-bound. At the turn of the landing, a sturdy black-a-vised Gael fled upstairs to summon the superiors. The Apostle blessed the others with a shy smile which would be kind, and a wave of the hand which emptied space,—except for an obese little spectacled sharpnosed creature like a violet sparrow who hopped about pertly obsequious. Down came flying the superiors as a bell began to ring and intonations sounded in the upper corridors. The rector was annoyed at being taken unawares: but he presented his vice-rector, a mild anemic of thirty with the face of a good young woman.

  “We are come to accept your hospitality, Monsignore, without any ceremony,” said Hadrian. They passed into the refectory to the high table. Twenty-nine students followed: and arranged themselves in two lines down the sides of the centre, and in a third line across the end. The dean-of-students intoned the Grace: the rest responded. The Pope placed Himself on the rector’s right, with the vice-rector on His Own right: Carvale supported the rector on the left. Soup, boiled meat, vegetables, baked-meat, cheese, apples, appeared and disappeared. The rector conceded to Hadrian the right of signalling to the reader in the pulpit: the Pope kept him reading, because He did not want to talk platitudes, and because He did want to look at the men. He ate little. The food was abundant in quantity: indelicate in quality. They offered Him the best black wine from the college-vineyards: but He preferred a student’s little cruet of red, a coarse wine with some body and no bouquet whatever—an unsophisticate wine such as Fabrizio Colonna might have used at the end of the fifteenth century. Most of the diners assiduously and emphatically dined, with one eye on the high table, a nose in their own plate, and the other eye in their neighbour’s. Hadrian noted all their physiognomies; and began to select those with whom He would have a word. He passed the weak young thin-nosed dean at the top of the right table, the tall quiet man in black who looked already sacerdotal, the old bald amiability with an air of conventionality who might have been a parson,—yes He would speak to him of the others,—the blubber-lipped gorger who mopped up gravy with a crumb-wedge and gulched the sop—no: the fastidious person who ate bread and drank water and looked so hungry—yes: the florid giant with the fiery wiry mop—no: the dark man with the cruel face of a Redemptorist—no: the sallow lath who had the manners of an attaché—no. On the left, colourless mediocrities—no. Across the end, youngsters:—His Holiness distinguished a black-haired white-skinned one with wet black eyes, certainly an Erse: a crisp-brown-haired muscular hobbledehoy with shining grey eyes and a tanned skin, who would look well in a farmyard: a big bloom of boyhood yellow-haired, blue-eyed, scarlet and moist-lipped, ardent and modest. The Pope tapped on the table. The reader, to whom no one had listened, ceased; and came down to his dinner. A low murmur of conversation arose. Everybody began to think furiously of what he would do or demand if he had a chance.

  “This is a great day for the college, Holy Father,” the rector said. The Pope slightly bowed. “Had we known that You intended to honour us, Holy Father, a proper reception——”

  “Unnecessary,” Hadrian quietly interrupted. “We do not wish to disturb. Our children expect to see Us; and We are here to be seen. They all shall be able to say that they have seen and heard and handled Us, if they please.” He spoke lowly, and (the rector perceived) unwillingly, but very officially. They were eating wind-fallen apples. The rector offered an enormous silver snuff-box. Hadrian passed it to the vice-rector, who took a pinch with blushing alacrity. It went the round of the tables; and returned on the rector’s left. Hadrian carefully noted the takers. Some took snuff perfunctorily, some customarily, others horribly. The fiery wiry giant stood up and ostentatiously absorbed it with a cringe to the high table. Those to whom the Pope was resolved to speak took none: the fastidious person disdained it. The meal was finished. The students ranked for Grace; and all proceeded to the chapel to visit The Lord in the Sacrament. After five minutes’ silent prayer, they emerged on the first corridor. There seemed to be uncertainty: the men congregated on the descent expecting directions. In the ordinary course of things, some would be going to Propaganda for lectures; others, to their own rooms for study or siesta: but, for the next few moments, perhaps a dozen would enjoy horse-play in the shabby shrubbery. A group of the last collected at the stair-head, by the reception-room (with the red-velvet settees and the sham Venetian glass chandeliers), into which the rector was endeavouring to entice the Pope. But Hadrian was looking at the students, mischievously smiling at them. “It is to be hoped that you are not going into the garden to murder a cat:” He said.

  Everybody instantly became as red as a scalding-hot capsicum, some with shame, one with disgust, others from sheer fear. Church-students easily are frightened, because there generally is less grace than nature in them; and you only have to disclose a knowledge of the latter for them to desire (as phrenetically as possible) the predominance of the former. This makes for uneasiness, often for hypocrisy—in both cases, for mental and corporeal effort and a sudden flux of blood to the extremities.

  “To murder a cat, Holy Father?” the vice-rector ejaculated. He was responsible for discipline.

  “Yes. They used to murder stray cats here, just to pass the time. We have seen it. The one thing, which We remember in connection with your shrubbery, is a rush of ramping infuriated boys with spades and pitchforks, chasing and smashing a poor stray cat. We can see the horror now, with its broken back, and one eye hanging out on its whiskers. We can hear its dreadful heart-rending yells. Boys, don’t do such things—to cats of all creatures!”

  He spoke with fervence. Some savages wondered what the blazes He was driving at. There was a little silence. No one seemed to know how to break it. Then the sparrow-like student appeared with a red chair which he had taken the liberty of extracting from the reception-room; and dragged it behind the Pontiff at the stair-head. It was a welcome interruption. Hadrian sat down; and dismissed Cardinal Carvale with the superiors. He was going to have the college to Himself for half-an-hour. The improvised throne stood alone in the bare corridor: the
students clustered up the stairs below it. Hadrian perceived the inevitable odour of hot boy. He produced a sentence wherewith to address them.

  “Dear children,” he said, feeling as old as Methuselah for the moment, “do learn to love: don’t be hard, don’t be cruel to any living creature.” And that was all.

  He beckoned the dean who came and kneeled before Him: laid His hand on the young man’s head; and blessed him. The others followed in rotation. In a secret voice, He invited each one to ask a favour. Most asked Him to pray for them and held up their beads for a blessing: some asked for the apostolic benediction in the hour of death for themselves and their relations: the fastidious person asked for nothing.

  “Nothing?” the Pope whispered.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” (very tenderly)

  “Everything, O Sanctity:” the stoic responded with a sob and a stony glare. Hadrian inquired for the number of his room; and put a similar question to the other four whom He had noted. When He had blessed all, He sent them away, and sat alone for a minute or two. Then He went to visit the big boy: who looked at Him bravely, with tearful innocent eyes. To Hadrian, it was wonderful to see this great virile virgin of nineteen. He elicited a not unusual and simple tale: a little Gaelic farm, always Catholic through all persecutions, the third of eight sons, the Vocation at twelve years of age, the mother wanted to confess to her own son. It was idyllic. It would come exquisitely in the objective bucolic manner of Theokritos. The long shapely limbs trembled before Him; the grand shoulders bowed. He gave the boy His Own white sash as a present for his mother: bade him be a good priest; and left him wallowing in happiness. Hadrian stopped in the corridor, disappointed because the lad came from a farm: He had placed him beside the sea, and had conceived a mental image of him, bare-legged, in a blue guernsey, at the rudder of a fishing-smack. But the next, the muscular hobbledehoy, really did come from a farm: his skin had the unmistakable tan of the sun on a wheat-field: and his front was bovine. So was his manner. He was so frightened by the importance of his visitor that he spoke with surliness, and in the voice of a child of thirteen. Hadrian was astonished at the discrepancy between the voice and the speaker: He made him less uncomfortable by substituting an official manner for His friendly one (which the hobbledehoy could not understand) asking his name and ordinary questions about his status and addressing him as Mr. Macleod. It was a magnificent animal, incapable of the finer sentimental emotions, likely to conceal fat in a cassock (or in corduroy, if on a farm) before the age of thirty. Privately the Pope wondered what in the world was the sign of this one’s Vocation. He Himself could perceive none: but then He was inexperienced; and the youth was secretive. Hadrian tried to draw him out. Was he happy? Oh yes. Did he want anything? Oh no. To what diocese did he belong? To Devana. When did he expect the priesthood? A look of wild terror came into the grey eyes. Hadrian perceived a clue; and pressed on, repeating his inquiry. “I never will be,” the creature shrilled.