The Cardinal

by Henry Morton Robinson

  “What you’re pleading for is a miracle of growth, Gaetano. Railing against your passengers won’t help. Before the miracle can happen”—Stephen baited his hook with a persuasive figure—“you must settle on a fixed love, something to steer by, like Polaris up there.”

  Suggestible but unconvinced, Orselli considered the stars, each shining with a separate glory: golden Dubhe, blue Denebola, Vega the pale sapphire. “They are steadfast enough. It is I who waver, Stefano. Could I choose one from among so many? No, I am a false compass, unable to hold a true course.”

  Stephen tried to lift the sack of self-loathing from his friend’s back. Assurdo! Say that you haven’t tested yourself, that you need adjustment. But false? Never!” Stephen was pleading now. “You have a genius for love, Gaetano. Give yourself a fair shot at fidelity. Put a period to these saloon-deck conquests and get married.”

  “Sweet, innocent Stefano! Clearly you have no idea of my requirements. Even a marriage broker with angels as his stock in trade would be staggered by them.” Orselli seemed eager to prove his point. “Shall I run over, lightly, my list of specifications?”

  “By all means.”

  Buoyed by the oral prospect before him, Orselli nipped a fresh cigar. “You have an ear for wonders, Stephen. Life is renewed whenever I talk to you.” The Captain went through the ritual of lighting his Havana. “I may soar slightly. Do you grant me full freedom of rhetoric?”

  “Within limits of clarity.”

  “Well then, this treasure that I seek, this most-improbable she, must have, primo, a serene mind already ripened on the vine of maturity. No acid grape that sets the teeth on edge. And especially, no bubbling. She must be a still wine of delicate bouquet, a quiet Falernian that endears itself to nostril and palate before plunging into the deep veins that flood the heart.” Orselli paused to inhale his Havana from cupped hands. “Is the first specification clear?”

  “Most graphically.”

  “Next—to explore the practical side—she must be a woman of independent means and of an accepted family. A title would help, but is not obligatory. I shun the arriviste trollop, the social adventuress. I might forfeit my good name. I see this paragon wife-to-be solidly established in the intimate upper set of a world city—Rome, Vienna, Paris. To a cosmopolitan like myself this makes no difference.” Orselli expanded the real-estate motif. “There is, of course, the matter of a residence: I should require a house in the best quarter of town, and a country estate, not more than twenty-five miles—thirty at the most—from the city. Neither isolated nor suburban, capisce?”

  “Perfectly. But your conditions grow a trifle difficult.”

  “You speak of difficulties? We have not yet touched upon the most intimate difficulty of all—the problem of beauty.” A nice delicacy prompted Orselli’s question, “I have your permission to develop this theme, Stephen? It will not prove—overstimulating?”

  “This is your scenario, not mine. Write it out; you’ll feel better.”

  “Physician seraphic, practitioner to the troubled heart—I could lift litanies to your understanding.” Orselli curbed his own rhetoric. “But to the subject. As you may know”—the Captain became a man admitting a weakness—”I am addicted to the tipo guionico, the Juno type, with a punta, a mere dash of Rubens. Bluntly, I like big women. I will be candid: there is a danger here—the risk of fat. Fortunately, Italian women have the secret of keeping the flesh firm till they are well past fifty. Indeed, I knew a Milanese countess, you will not believe this, Stephen, who at sixty—olà, what am I doing in Milan? The point is, one must select shrewdly. Otherwise”—Orselli’s cigar traced gigantic billows in the dark—”the end would be tragic.”

  “I hate to interrupt you,” said Stephen, “but is this dream woman animated by a soul?”

  “But a soul of such sensibility! It will enliven her every feature.” Orselli was off on another rhetorical flight. “The eye tranquil as it contemplates inner goodness. The mouth a spiritual enigma—Gioconda lips vibrating between a prayer and a caress, a taunt and an invitation. The chin, despite its soft rondure, a proud guarantee of constancy. The throat marbling in purity to a …” Orselli pulled up contritely. “Forgive me, Stephen. On a night such as this, a man should be spared anatomical details.”

  “Thank you, Gaetano.”

  Stephen recognized easily enough the elements of Orselli’s portrait: the woman part earth, part drug, part flight. He saw also the same components of aspiration and yearning Dante had poured into Beatrice, transforming her thereby from flesh into essence.

  “Do you see that haze filling the heavens?” Orselli was asking.

  Gazing upward, Stephen saw the glow caused by clouds of star dust whirling through the universe. Light mysterious and original, an aureole of loneliness shining for itself, smiling on itself alone. The grandeur of Genesis poured down.

  And God said: Let there be tights made in the firmament of heaven, and let them be for signs, and for seasons and for days and years.

  “Yes, I see it,” said Stephen.

  “Such a glow will surround the head of the woman I seek. Do you think I shall ever find her?”

  CHAPTER 7

  THE BEAUTIES of a copper-sulphate sea were wasted on Lawrence Glennon as the Stromboli plowed through the Mediterranean. His anxiety deepened during the slow business of docking at Naples, exactly forty-eight hours behind schedule. The conclave had begun two days earlier; already eight ballots had been cast (two each morning and afternoon), and only the hope of a prolonged deadlock kept Glennon in the race.

  At the gangplank Orselli apologized for his broken pledge. The Cardinal comforted him. “The fault, my dear Captain, certainly does not rest with you or your ship. Archangels could not have done more. Sta bene, capitano—my blessing on you and your vessel.”

  This time, nothing could prevent Orselli from kissing the Cardinal’s ringless hand.

  At the railway station Glennon was agreeably surprised when a gold-braided official greeted him with a chin-to-knee bow and announced that a special train would speed His Eminence to Rome. “This arrangement,” explained the stationmaster, “is necessary because a railroad strike incited by Communists is tying up the regular passenger trains between Naples and the Holy City. Ah, these Communists! By their machinations they will paralyze the whole peninsula.”

  Glennon avoided political commitment in his speech of acceptance. “I am much gratified,” he said, “that the Italian government honors me with a special train. Dare I hope that we may board it at once?”

  “Immediatamente, Lordship.”

  The stationmaster’s immediatamente turned out to mean a two-hour delay caused by much ceremonial, the loading of baggage, and telegraphing to Rome for hotel accommodations. It was noon when the train puffed out of the station. “Who do you suppose is behind all this?” asked Glennon, as they skirted the volcanic base of Rocca Monfina on their northward course to Rome.

  “The Cardinal Camerlengo may have had a change of heart.”

  “That would be giving the devil too much due.” Glennon gazed out the window at the magnificent scenery of the Liri Valley. Mountains, cataracts, ruined tombs, and amphitheaters whirled past, but he saw none of them. His eye was inward, fixed on a barrel-vaulted chamber, gloriously frescoed, in which sixty men sitting in canopied chairs were at this moment casting a ninth ballot for Peter’s newest successor. By great good luck the Cardinal might reach Rome in time for the next ballot … if there should be a next ballot!

  At two o’clock His Eminence began to get hungry. “Does the Italian government provide no box lunches for itinerant American cardinals?” The question was snappish.

  “If you can wait till Frosinone … the place is famous for its fruit.” To divert Glennon’s mind Stephen made a practical suggestion. “Might it not be a good idea to change from traveling attire into the robes of a cardinal-elector?”

  Irritably Glennon assented. With Stephen’s help he donned the violet-colored cassock worn by ca
rdinals in mourning for a Pope. Then he put on his rochet, a linen knee-length garment, long-sleeved, indicating the supreme jurisdiction of a cardinal-elector. Around Glennon’s neck Stephen hung the diamond-studded pectoral cross, also symbolic of his ultimate authority as a member of the conclave.

  “Now,” said Stephen, “you’re ready to enter the Sistine Chapel as a cardinal-elector.”

  The Cardinal’s eyes filled, overflowed a little. “One aspect of your character baffles me, Stephen. You defy mathematical law by increasing your enthusiasm while dividing it with others.”

  IT WAS FOUR-THIRTY P.M. when they reached the Central Terminal in Rome.

  Standing irresolutely on the station platform, Glennon and Stephen were met by a purple-caped member of the Vatican household who, after introducing himself as Monsignor Panteleoni, led his charges to a limousine bearing the papal arms. Monsignor Panteleoni ordered the driver to make for the Vatican a tutta velocità. Westward across Rome, they sped. Not until they crossed the Tiber at the Vittorio Emmanuele Bridge did Stephen get his bearings. This part of Rome he knew. As the limousine wove through a clutter of streets rising from the Borgo, he braced himself for the head-on view of St. Peter’s.

  First appeared the stupendous ribbed dome of Michelangelo, a massive helmet crowning the most ambitious structure ever conceived by man. Then the baroque façcade—cyclopic blocks of travertine, fronted by gigantic pillars and approached by a magnificent triple flight of steps. In the center of St. Peter’s Square stood the Obelisk of Caligula flanked by two mammoth fountains. The whole square was embraced in the stately ellipse of Bernini’s colonnades—and between these curving arms a vast, silent crowd, possibly two hundred thousand people, awaited the feathery puff of smoke that announces the election of a new Pope.

  Stephen remembered waiting for the dramatic signal in this very plaza when Benedict XV was elected in 1915. White smoke indicated that a Pope had been chosen, while indecisive votes were signalized by black smoke caused by mixing damp straw with the burning ballots.

  “The smoke has been black for three days,” said Monsignor Panteleoni. “The conclave is in a deadlock.”

  “Pray God I may help break it,” murmured Glennon.

  Through a gate guarded by Swiss Guards in blue and yellow uniforms, the car glided into Vatican City. Inside the Leonine Wall the car halted in a courtyard flanked by halberd-bearing Noble Guards wearing scarlet pompons. This entire section of the Apostolic Palace had been walled off from the rest of the Vatican; literally, the conclave was taking place behind lead-sealed doors and bricked-up walls. Once the conclave began, no unauthorized person could enter, and no one could leave except in case of death.

  With Monsignor Panteleoni as escort, Cardinal Glennon and his conclavist approached a handsomely caped nobleman, Prince Chigi, head of the illustrious family that for centuries has guarded the conclave against the world’s intrusion. As Marshal of the Conclave, Prince Chigi wore a mantle of black velvet, a golden sword, and a Renaissance ruff. In his cocked hat waved a snowy plume, and from his belt hung an embroidered purse containing the keys of the conclave.

  Monsignor Panteleoni whispered a few fords to the Marshal, who doffed his plumes and requested the honor of examining Glennon’s credentials. Stephen produced the documents attesting the Cardinal’s ecclesiastical rank, privileges, titles, and exemptions. While the Marshal examined the parchment and scrutinized seals and signatures, Glennon was suffering purgatorial tortures. The nerves along his heavy-soled jaw contracted involuntarily; a blue-forked vein swelled in his forehead. At length the Marshal returned the documents with a courtly flourish, opened his embroidered purse, and drew forth the key to the outer gate. He thrust the key into an iron door, opening it from his side. Within, a face appeared at a revolving grille. Formalities were exchanged. Inside, another key turned. Slowly a door swung open.

  Lawrence Cardinal Glennon, Archbishop of Boston, bowed to the plumed Marshal. The Reverend Stephen Fermoyle, conclavist to the Cardinal, bowed also. They were entering the door when a thunderous shout arose from two hundred thousand throats in the plaza.

  “È bianco, è bianco.” (It is white, it is white.) Then, “C’è un nuovo Papa!” (A new Pope.)

  Stephen, following the eager lift of Prince Chigi’s eyes, saw a puff of white smoke hanging like a feather above the roof of the Sistine Chapel. The sfumata!

  Glennon saw it, too. “No, no,” he cried, piteous tears of chagrin rolling down his cheeks. For the second time, a Pope had been elected without him. Twice he had lost the transoceanic race to Rome; twice he had been thwarted in the use of his electoral franchise, and life could not promise him another chance.

  Glennon paled, tottered slightly, reddened, paled again. Stephen moved to the Cardinal’s side with outstretched supporting hands. He expected to touch a crumpled sack of flesh, but as his hand touched Glennon’s shoulder, the Cardinal stiffened as though a heavy voltage of electricity had charged his body.

  Anger exploded like a depth charge in Glennon’s throat. “Lead me to Giacobbi,” he bellowed at the Marshal.

  Prince Chigi was startled. The Marshal, a hereditary nobleman and a millionaire, had never had such a blast directed at himself. He started to draw himself up for a ceremonious statement, but Lawrence Glennon was beyond ceremony. He pushed past the plumed Marshal, thrust aside a Swiss Guard, and strode into the conclave door.

  “I beg Your Lordship to forgive him,” said Stephen to the Marshal. “He is very much disturbed.” Without waiting for Chigi’s reply, he started after Glennon. But Monsignor Panteleoni tugged at his elbow.

  “Only cardinal-electors are allowed in the Sistine Chapel,” he explained. “Permit me to escort you to the Sala Ducale, where the other conclavists are waiting.”

  Stephen caught a last glimpse of his Cardinal storming through a large sacristylike chamber. “God of electors,” prayed Stephen, “save this man from conduct unbecoming to a member of the Sacred College.”

  STRIDING into the Sistine Chapel, Lawrence Glennon found himself in a chamber of quelling solemnity and rich twilight gloom. Knots of venerable men wearing the uncovered rochets of cardinal-electors were congratulating each other in the satisfied manner of peers who have just completed a difficult task. Along either wall were ranged canopy-covered chairs; at the end of the chapel stood an isolated altar of white marble, and behind this altar rose Michelangelo’s magnificent fresco depicting the Last Judgment, the more terrifying now because twilight obscured it in shadows. In front of the altar stood an empty armchair in which the new Pope would receive the first homage of the cardinals who had chosen him as Christ’s Vicar, Patriarch of the West, Bishop of Rome, and Keeper of the Pontifical Keys.

  Glennon could not help remembering happier days when he had entered this historic chamber at the side of Pius X. Then the Pope’s own finger had pointed out to him the marvelously foreshortened figures of saint and sibyl immortalized on the barrel-vaulted ceiling by the perfect artist. In this very Chapel Glennon had chanted responses while the Pope himself had celebrated Mass. Now he stood in the taper-lighted gloom, an unknown latecomer searching unfamiliar faces for some ray of welcome or recognition. Where were Pillot, Ruzyna, Von Hofen, Gibbons—wearers of the red hat when the century was young? Where was Vannutelli, adviser and confidant of the great Leo? Dead, all departed.

  And the living—where were they? Where was Merry del Val, leal companion of his youth? Where, for that matter, was Giacobbi?

  A new more terrible fear smote Lawrence Glennon. Might it be that the Camerlengo was now Pope? Who had been elected?

  At his elbow Glennon heard an Oxford-modulated voice. “Where have you been these many days, caro Glennon? We had prayed, some of us at least, that you might arrive earlier.”

  It was the Englishman, Mourne, an elegantly garrulous prelate with the face of a Blake archangel, and a halo of silver hair floating above his forehead. “There was a moment between the second and third ballots when your vote might have turned t
he tide.”

  Anxiety charged Glennon’s question, “Whom did the scrutiny reveal?”

  “Laus Deo, Achille Ratti of Milan. Homo liber, homo librorum.” Compulsively, Mourne explained his pun. “A free man—and a man—ha-ha—of books. The former Ambrosian librarian, you know.”

  “Where is Giacobbi?”

  “The Lord Camerlengo assists at the immantatio—the robing of the new pontiff. It is rumored that Ratti will make him his Secretary of State. … Ah, here they come now.”

  A hush fell upon the assembly as the new Pope, attended on one side by Cardinal Giacobbi, on the other by Cardinal Merry del Val, entered the Sistine Chapel. Attired in a dazzling white cassock, an elbow-length cape bordered with scarlet, and red slippers embroidered with a gold cross, the newly elected pontiff walked without eagerness or false humility toward the armchair in front of the marble altar. Achille Ratti, on whom the mantle of Peter had fallen, was a stocky, spectacled man in his middle sixties, a famous Alpinist and bibliophile, destined to wear the Fisherman’s ring for seventeen difficult years. Seating himself on his temporary dais, he waited with serene patience while the cardinals formed in order of seniority for the first obedience.

  Assisted by chamberlains, Lawrence Glennon took his place, eighteenth in line among the cardinal-priests. Approaching the Pope’s armchair, he knelt, kissed the pontiff’s hand, his knee, and the cross on his slippered toe. Achille Ratti, now Pius XI, leaned forward to embrace his colleague in Christ.

  “We are happy to greet our American brother,” murmured the pontiff, touching his lips to Glennon’s cheek. The fact that the Pope recognized him somewhat mollified His Eminence but could not wholly soothe his chafed nerves.

  The first adoratio over, Pius XI rose and retired to the Sistine sacristy for a brief refreshment of prayer. Meanwhile the cardinals, proceeding informally to the Sala Ducale, were joined by their conclavists; Marshal Chigi and his noble attendants swelled the brilliant court.