“Felicitations, Your Eminence,” said Ghislana. “I congratulate you on your elevation”—her violet glance rested on Stephen’s cross of diamonds—“and on your niece. The first, I could have predicted. The second”—she smiled at Regina—“I had to discover for myself.”
“I am happy that you and Regina found each other,” said Stephen. It was an accurate statement of his feelings. Could he have chosen a single friend for Mona’s daughter, he would have named Ghislana Orselli as custodian and tutor of all that was enduringly feminine in the world.
Princess Lontana’s awareness that her grand salvo had somehow misfired brought an itch of irritation into her voice. “Gina dear,” she said, “I think that everyone is waiting for you to play. Come, let me make a little speech telling them who you are.”
In the expectant hush that followed Princess Lontana’s introduction, Regina took her place at the piano. With seeming simplicity she played a Chopin nocturne. To Stephen, as to the rest of the audience, it was apparent that the pianist had the unusual gift of letting the music deliver its own message. Chopin was followed by Reflets dans l’eau, a Debussy tone poem, delicately nebulous under the artiste’s hand. Taking her meed of applause gracefully, Regina moved into the grandly styled Bach-Tausig Toccata and Fugue in D minor—a work that emerged in appropriate sweep and strength.
Happiness, differing in kind and intensity from any he had yet known, filled Stephen as he watched Regina at the piano. This was Mona’s daughter, more beautiful, more gifted than Mona—a soul obviously at ease before perfection, capable of loving and growing in its light. This was the child the white-coated doctor would have destroyed in routine fashion. In eighteen short years, the curve of God’s circle had been revealed. From the broken arc of Mona’s life, He had shaped this perfect round.
Sea-deep, haunting, Regina’s music filled the salon. Men and women rose to applaud as she left the piano. Stephen stood, too, eyes brimming with pride and happiness. At his side, he felt Ghislana Orselli sharing Regina’s triumph with him. Secretly they smiled at each other; together they waited for Regina to join them. But the Princess evidently had other plans, for she led the artiste to a little court of admirers at the other side of the salon.
Now appeared Signor Ruggiero Bari, florid, self-assured, and curiously mesmeric. “Our hostess, self-sister to the Muses and patroness of poets,” he began, “has asked me to present for your entertainment a few scenes from dramatic literature. I shall begin with an interpretation of D’Annunzio’s Francesca da Rimini, in which, creating the part of Paolo”—he bowed with affected modesty—“I have had the honor to support the immortal Duse.”
Without props or costume (Signor Bari wore tails and white tie), the actor proceeded to demonstrate the naked power of his art. Setting the stage in a few majestic strophes, he re-enacted D’Annunzio’s version of the illicit love between Paolo and Francesca da Rimini. His portrayal of the tragic lovers won well-deserved “bravos” from the audience.
Much taken by the man’s art, Stephen wondered why Signor Bari had chosen this particular theme. It was, of course, older than Dante; undeniably, too, it furnished the actor with histrionic material of a high order. Still, from the entire range of literature, guilty love was scarcely the subject one might have expected on such an occasion.
Ruggiero was making his next announcement. “I shall now render Alfred de Vigny’s La Colère de Samson, depicting the eternal struggle between man’s vision of God and woman’s unremitting attempt to divert him from that goal. Samson, shorn of his strength, laments the treachery of Delilah—la ruse de la femme—by which man is constantly betrayed.”
Bari’s rendition of the poem was superb. But why this preoccupation with the pathology of mortal love? Somewhat puzzled, Stephen turned to Ghislana: “Surely there are other poems he might have chosen. Am I suspecting a motive where none is intended?”
“I think the intention is strongly marked, Your Eminence.”
“But what is behind it?”
“La ruse de la femme,” said Ghislana quietly.
The depth and malice of Princess Lontana’s plot seemed almost unbelievable to Stephen. Yet of the hundred or more persons in the audience, the Princess alone had private knowledge of the old passion that had existed between Ghislana and himself. Could it be that the Princess was purposely contriving to awaken echoes of the past? Or was she taking a perverse, malignant delight in saying (under cover of Bari’s declamation), “See how much I know about you two?” It was unthinkable that anyone, even a faded old harridan, could devise such torments for herself, or impose such cruel embarrassment on onetime friends. Yet it was clear now to Stephen that the Princess had baited her trap with Regina’s innocence, then arranged matters so that he and Ghislana would sit together during Bari’s performance. Shocked and angered by the ugliness of the plot, he turned in agitation to his companion:
“Princess Lontana must be mad!”
Ghislana’s answer came in a soothing whisper: “Don’t give her the satisfaction of seeing that you are disturbed.”
It was good advice. Powerless to fight or run, Stephen was preparing to follow it, when a bass rumble, very pleasant to hear, came from a member of the audience. Dom Arcibal was addressing the actor. “Are you familiar, Signor Bari, with the passage in Dante’s Paradiso that describes the poet’s last vision of Beatrice? I think the scene occurs in the thirty-first canto.”
Stephen saw petulant displeasure cloud the Princess’ face. Evidently Signor Bari saw it also. To protect his five-thousand-lire bonus, the actor began an elaborate apology. The passage was familiar to him, of course, but unfortunately the lines were not quite fresh in his memory.
Dom Arcibal was not to be shaken off so easily. “Surely our hostess, self-sister to the Muses, has a copy of Dante in her library. It would give an old monk extreme pleasure to hear the passage read by so great an artist as Signor Bari.”
Overreached, Princess Lontana sent a servant for a copy of The Divine Comedy. Book in hand, Bari was glancing desperately through its pages, when Dom Arcibal gave the screw another twist.
“For the benefit of my friend, Lord Eltwin—whose only cultural deficiency is a sorry lack of Italian—might we have a running translation in English?” Beaming innocently about the salon, the monk finally glanced at Stephen. “Cardinal Fermoyle’s felicity with tongues is remembered by many in this room. If it is not too great an imposition, Your Eminence, will you exercise your skill for us tonight?”
A meaningful wink from Dom Arcibal’s off-eye accompanied the request.
The cunning instrument placed in his hands by Dom Arcibal—the only other person in the world who knew of Stephen’s former attachment to Ghislana—gave the American Cardinal an unexpected weapon. Human enough to enjoy using it against his deceitful hostess, he arose, smiled at Dom Arcibal, and said: “I shall be glad to translate for the benefit of your friend. You must forgive me, though, if I stammer in the presence of Alighieri’s genius.”
The reading began with Dante’s glorious apostrophe to the divine light that penetrates the universe:
O trina luce, che in unica stella
scintillando a lor vista sì gli appaga,
guarda quaggiù alia nostra procella. …
Stephen rendered the lines freely:
“O triune light, which in a single star contents all upon whom it shineth—gaze down upon our mortal storm.”
Bari continued with the stanza in which the poet recounts his rapture at beholding Beatrice shining near the center of sempiternal light:
… gli occhi su levai,
e vidi lei che si facea corona,
ri flettendo da sè gli eterni rai.
Stephen felt the poverty of his translation:
“Lifting my eyes I saw her, crowned, reflecting the light of those eternal rays.”
… chè sua effige
non discendeva a me per mezzo mista.
How recreate the unsayable vision? Stephen tried:
&nbs
p; “Her image, unsullied by baser atmosphere, descended upon me.”
At the lines immortalizing Dante’s gratitude to Beatrice, Stephen translated into shining verses the essence of his own regard for Ghislana Orselli.
By virtue of love’s power,
From servitude to freedom thou hast drawn me …
Preserve in me thy pure magnificence,
So that my spirit, cleansed of all desire,
May, praise to thee, be loosened from my body.
Moved either by the elegance of Stephen’s translation or by some secret knowledge that the audience—enthusiastic though it was—could never share, Dom Arcibal rose to lead the applause. His bass“bravissimo” rolled toward Stephen on a special wave, as if echoing words uttered years ago in a penitential cell on the Campagna: “There is much love in your heart, dear son. God wants all of it. Bravissimo. By grace and self-conquest you have offered Him the nearly perfect gift He demands from His anointed servants.”
HIGH in the dome of St. Peter’s, silver trumpets sent echoes of the Papal March flying. Seventy thousand persons stood inside the church, half a million more jammed the Piazza outside, as the coronation procession of Pius XII entered the central doors of the Basilica.
No external sign of pomp and pageantry was lacking. First came an Auditor of the Holy Rota, holding aloft a spearheaded cross, surrounded by seven acolytes of noble birth. Came papal gendarmes in towering black busbies and white breeches, followed by chamberlains in lace ruffs and chains of gold. Knights of Malta advanced in solemn phalanx, their white cloaks emblazoned with crimson crosses; behind them at the slow pace of pageantry came sandaled monks, bearded patriarchs, mitered bishops, and purple-robed archbishops. Now the princes of the Church appeared, cardinals regally caped, walking solemnly two by two, the younger men first, the more venerable elders nearer the papal sedia directly behind them. Between the cardinals and the Pope a band of heralds and mace-bearers guarded the triple tiara, beehive in shape, studded with precious stones, and borne on a red velvet cushion.
On the shoulders of twelve throne-bearers, attired in crimson damask liveries, the Pope’s sedia gestatoria floated above the throng. His cloth-of-gold cape was caught at the throat by a jeweled clasp; over his head a cream-colored canopy swayed. On either side, prelates waved the traditional flabelli, magnificent ostrich-plumed fans. While the Sistine choir chanted “Tu es Petrus” the Pope ceaselessly made signs of the cross, blessing the multitude with white-gloved hands.
At the chapel of the Most Holy Trinity, the procession halted while Pius XII descended from his throne to adore the Blessed Sacrament. Like any other priest he knelt, head bowed, in prayer. No music now. Hushed all. From the enormous vault of the dome, silence fell like a tapestry.
Finishing his prayer of adoration, Pius XII rose from his knees and prepared to seat himself again on his throne. A cowled monk approached. In one hand he carried a lighted taper; in the other, a tuft of wax-impregnated hemp. Bowing to His Holiness, the monk brought flame and hemp together. Fire flashed momentarily, then vanished in smoke.
“Sic transit gloria mundi,” cried the monk.
As the procession moved at the tempo of high ritual past the statue of St. Peter, the symbolic act of earthly consummation was re-enacted. In sepulchral tones, “Sic transit” reverberated through the Basilica.
At the central altar, reserved for the Sovereign Pontiff alone, Pius XII vested for solemn Pontifical Mass. At the conclusion of the Mass he would be crowned with the triple tiara, symbolic of the Church Suffering, the Church Militant, and the Church Triumphant.
Princes would bow to the wearer of this crown; panoply would surround his person; a semblance of divinity would clothe his words. Only a forehead proved against personal vanity could bear so flaming a burden. To remind the Pope of the fearful jeopardy in which he would live, and the ultimate dust to which mortal glories return, the hooded monitor approached him for the third time. Again flame met hemp, again the lugubrious warning sounded:
“Sic transit gloria mundi.”
The Mass began. Stephen, sitting among his compeers, watched the changeless sacrifice unfold. As in all other Masses, whether celebrated in vaulted temple or thatched hut, the priest re-enacted the Passion suffered by Christ that men might gain life everlasting. As Pius XII extended his hands over the oblation he was about to consecrate, Stephen silently joined him in the Hanc igitur.
“We therefore beseech Thee, O Lord, mercifully to accept this oblation of our servitude, as also of Thy whole family; and to dispose our days in Thy peace; and bid us be delivered from eternal damnation, and to be numbered among the flock of Thy elect. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
The grandeur of earthly pomp, the gauds of fame, the baubles of power, and the transient adulation of men—all, all would vanish as a spark amid darkness, a yesterday which is past. But the oblation would remain. The eternal sacrifice would live on, concelebrated by priest and people, fellow partakers of His promise: “Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.”
Epilogue
Between Two Worlds
LIKE that better-known English captain before him, Sir Humphrey Grylls, K.C.B., master of the luxury liner Oriana, was never, never sick at sea. As a younger man he had been slightly apprehensive of icebergs—a pardonable fear, perhaps, in view of that rather bad show on the Titanic. But now in his middle fifties, the only remainder of that earlier dread was a tingling in Sir Humphrey’s nasal membranes whenever his vessel came within a hundred miles of a berg. In the trade, Sir Humphrey was regarded as a captain’s captain. He ran a spit-and-polish, loyalty-up, loyalty-down ship; in 388 transatlantic crossings, not a flake of paint had been scraped from any of his commands.
With military brushes Sir Humphrey coaxed an ebbing tide of collie-colored hair across a widening beach of scalp, adjusted his hat to the slant prescribed by Beatty of Jutland, and surveyed himself in a double-hung mirror. Imperially slim, the captain might have been thought handsome except for pallid blue eyes, too narrowly set for some tastes. His numerous decorations, with the Victoria Cross as a pendant, hung from the left breast of his dress jacket. Having won the cross as a reserve lieutenant in World War I, Sir Humphrey now wondered whether he would be eligible for command of a battle cruiser in the coming struggle. If not a cruiser, then a destroyer. Anything. England expects …
Sir Humphrey filled his cigar case, nipped down the points of his waistcoat, and went on deck. The night was moonless, clear; acid stars etched brilliant, geometric patterns in the heavens. By Polaris and the Bear, Captain Grylls approximated the position of his ship. Thirty-two hundred miles out of Liverpool on a rhumb-line course to New York. With luck, landfall by daybreak.
He felt a curious tingling in his left septum. Ice? The indication was not definite. To a junior officer saluting him at the saloon-deck companionway, he murmured: “Station lookouts in the eyes of the ship, Mr. Ramilly. Have the searchlights play about. If the temperature drops another five degrees, notify me at once.”
Having virtually insured the safety of his vessel (Sir Humphrey’s lightest utterance was like a turret lathe cutting wax), the Captain entered the Regency Lounge, bestowing at regular intervals that special inclination of the head reserved for distinguished landsmen. The lounge was unusually crowded this evening; a cosmopolitan buzz, incited by predinner cocktails, rose from the tables. It occurred to Sir Humphrey that the wave of European refugees—titled, wealthy, or talented—had reached a new high on this voyage. Seemingly, everyone who could get out of Europe with a whole skin (and enough capital) was traveling first class aboard the Oriana, seeking life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the New World.
Not only was the passenger list swollen. The Oriana herself was bursting with valuable cargo—works of art, crown jewels, rare brandies, furniture from ancestral castles, priceless manuscripts, family plate, and costly fabrics. Not to mention thirty million dollars in gold bullion stowed in steel compartments below the w
aterline. A whole civilization was being transported across the Atlantic to the barbarian, but infinitely safer shores of the United States.
At the entrance to the dining room, Sir Humphrey gave his hat to the steward and walked, every inch a baronet, to his oval table in the center of the dining room. On a French ship, part of the captain’s duty is to pause at least once and inquire: “The moules marinières—you find them exciting?” The master of an Italian ship is expected to admire, momentarily at least, the beauties of an especially handsome corsage. No such obligations devolve upon a British captain. Therefore, Sir Humphrey proceeded straightway to his own table, bowed to the seated ladies, prayed the gentlemen not to rise, and took his place between two comely women. On this, the last night of his 388th crossing, the Captain was prepared to enjoy the nigh-onto-forty charms of Lady Adela Bracington (blonde), at his right, and the budding promise (brunette) of Regina Byrne, at his left.
Similarly situated, the master of a German ship might have smirked: “Eine Dome zwischen zwei Rosen.” Coming from Sir Humphrey, the remark would have sounded fatuous. Not that the Captain was immune to feminine allure. Quite the contrary. Lady Adela Bracington had heard (as who had not?) of the notorious “Humphy-Bumphy” letters, bought up at a devilish steep price on the eve of their publication in The May-fair Tatler.
About to join her diplomat husband in Washington, and prepared to hate every minute of it, Lady Adela had her twitting cap on tonight. In the shrill, abrasive tones that only English gentlewomen are permitted to use in public, she rallied the Baronet.
“Where do you keep yourself all day, Sir Humphrey? I’ve been rummaging about the boat for hours. Looked for you everywhere except the buttery.”
“That’s precisely where I was, Lady Adela. Who do you suppose prints these little crests on the butter pats?”
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