_ PART SEVEN. THE POPE
CHAPTER I
On the morning appointed for the visit to the Vatican, Roma dressed in the black gown and veil prescribed by etiquette for ladies going to an audience with the Pope.
The young Noble Guard in civilian clothes was waiting for her in the sitting-room. When she came out of the bedroom he was standing with a solemn face before the bust of David Rossi, which she had lately cast afresh and was beginning to point in marble.
"This is wonderful," he said. "Perfectly wonderful! A most astonishing study."
Roma smiled and bowed to him.
"Christ of course, and such reality, such feeling, such love! But shall I tell you what surprises me most of all?"
"What?"
"What surprises me most is the extraordinary resemblance between your Christ and the Pope."
"Really?"
"Indeed yes! Didn't you know it? No? It is almost incredible. Younger certainly, but the same features, the same expression, the same tenderness, the same strength! Even the same vertical lines over the nose which make the shako dither on one's head when something goes wrong and His Holiness is indignant."
Roma's smile was dying off her face like the sun off a field of corn, and she was looking sideways out of the window.
"Has the Pope any relations?" she asked.
"None whatever, not a soul. The only son of an only son. You must have been thinking of the Holy Father himself, and asking yourself what he was like thirty years ago. Come now, confess it!"
Roma laughed. The soldier laughed. "Shall we go?" she said.
A carriage was waiting for them, and they drove by the Tor di Nona, a narrow lane which skirts the banks of the Tiber, across the bridge of St. Angelo, and up the Borgo.
Roma was nervous and preoccupied. Why had she been sent for? What could the Pope have to say to her?
"Isn't it unusual," she asked, "for the Pope to send for any one--especially a woman, and a non-Catholic?"
"Most unusual. But perhaps Father Pifferi...."
"Father Pifferi?"
"He is the Holy Father's confessor."
"Is he a Capuchin?"
"Yes. The General at San Lorenzo."
"Ah, now I understand," said Roma. Light had dawned on her and her spirits began to rise.
"The Pope is very tender and fatherly, isn't he?"
"Fatherly? He is a saint on earth, that's what he is! Impetuous, perhaps, but so sweet and generous and forgiving. Makes you shake in your shoes if you've done anything amiss, but when all is over and he puts his arm on your shoulder and tells you to think no more about it, you're ready to die for him even at the stake."
Roma's spirits were rising every minute, and her nervousness was fading away. Since things had fallen out so, she could take advantage of her opportunities. She would tell the Pope everything, and he would advise with her and counsel her. She would speak about David Rossi, and the Pope would tell her what to do.
The great clock of the Basilica was striking ten with a solemn boom as the carriage rattled over the stones of the Piazza of St. Peter's--wet with the play of the fountains and bright with the rainbows made by the sun.
They alighted at the bronze gate, ascended the grand staircase, crossed a courtyard, passed through many gorgeous chambers, and arrived finally at an apartment hung with tapestries and occupied by a Noble Guard, who wore a brass helmet and held a drawn sword. The next room was the throne room, and beyond it were the Pope's private apartments.
A chaplain of the Pope's household came to say that by request of Father Pifferi the lady was to step into an anteroom; and Roma followed him into a small adjoining chamber, carpeted with cocoanut matting and furnished with a marble-topped table and two wooden chest-seats, bearing the papal arms. The little room opened on to a corridor overlooking a courtyard, a secret way to the Pope's private rooms, and it had a door to the throne room also.
"The Father will be here presently," said the chaplain, "and His Holiness will not be long."
Roma, who was feeling some natural tremors, tried to reassure herself by asking questions about the Pope. The chaplain's face began to gleam. He was a little man, with round red cheeks and pale grey eyes, and the usual tone of his voice was a hushed and reverent whisper.
"Faint? Yes, ladies do faint sometimes--often, I may say--and they nearly always cry. But the Holy Father is so gentle, so sweet."
The door to the throne room opened and there was a gleam of violet and an indistinct buzz of voices. The chaplain disappeared, and at the next moment a man in the dress of a waiter came from the corridor carrying a silver soup dish.
"You're the lady the Holy Father sent for?"
Roma smiled and assented.
"I'm Cortis--Gaetano Cortis--the Pope's valet, you know--and of course I hear everything."
Roma smiled again and bowed.
"I bring the Holy Father a plate of soup every morning at ten, but I'm afraid it is going to get cold this morning."
"Will he be angry?"
"Angry? He's an angel, and couldn't be angry with any one."
"He must indeed be good; everybody says so."
"He is perfect. That's about the size of it. None of your locking up his bedroom when he goes into the garden and putting the key into the pocket of his cassock, same as in the old Pope's days. I go in whenever I like, and he lets me take whatever I please. At Christmas some rich Americans wanted a skull-cap to save a dying man, and I got it for the asking. Now an old English lady wants a stocking to cure her rheumatism, and I'll get that too. I've saved a little hair from the last cutting, and if you hear of anybody...."
The valet's story of his perquisites was interrupted by the opening of the door of the throne room and the entrance of a friar in a brown habit. It was Father Pifferi.
"Don't rise, my daughter," he said, and closing the door behind the valet, he gathered up the skirts of his habit and sat down on the chest-seat in front of her.
"When you came to me with your confidence, my child, and I found it difficult to advise with you for your peace of mind, I told you I wished to take your case to a wiser head than mine. I took it to the Pope himself. He was touched by your story, and asked to see you for himself."
"But, Father...."
"Don't be afraid, my daughter. Pius the Tenth as a Pope may be lofty to sternness, but as a man he is humble and simple and kind. Forget that he is a sovereign and a pontiff, and think of him as a tender and loving friend. Tell him everything. Hold nothing back. And if you must needs reveal the confidences of others, remember that he is the Vicar of Him who keeps all our secrets."
"But, Father...."
"Yes."
"He is so high, so holy, so far above the world and its temptations...."
"Don't say that, my daughter. The Holy Father is a man like other men. Shall I tell you something of his life? The world knows it only by hearsay and report. You shall hear the truth, and when you have heard it you will go to him as a child goes to its father, and no longer be afraid." _