第 33 页

the commonplace and the unimportant by way of resting from the anxious

task of governing the world. And after he had spoken for a time every one

got up, and the visitors took leave.

"Don't forget," Narcisse repeated to Pierre, "you will find me at the

Sixtine Chapel to-morrow at ten. And I will show you the Botticellis

before we go to our appointment."

At half-past nine on the following morning Pierre, who had come on foot,

was already on the spacious Piazza of St. Peter's; and before turning to

the right, towards the bronze gate near one corner of Bernini's

colonnade, he raised his eyes and lingered, gazing at the Vatican.

Nothing to his mind could be less monumental than the jumble of buildings

which, without semblance of architectural order or regularity of any

kind, had grown up in the shadow cast by the dome of the basilica. Roofs

rose one above the other and broad, flat walls stretched out chance-wise,

just as wings and storeys had been added. The only symmetry observable

above the colonnade was that of the three sides of the court of San

Damaso, where the lofty glass-work which now encloses the old _loggie_

sparkled in the sun between the ruddy columns and pilasters, suggesting,

as it were, three huge conservatories.

And this was the most beautiful palace in the world, the largest of all

palaces, comprising no fewer than eleven thousand apartments and

containing the most admirable masterpieces of human genius! But Pierre,

disillusioned as he was, had eyes only for the lofty facade on the right,

overlooking the piazza, for he knew that the second-floor windows there

were those of the Pope's private apartments. And he contemplated those

windows for a long time, and remembered having been told that the fifth

one on the right was that of the Pope's bed-room, and that a lamp could

always be seen burning there far into the night.

What was there, too, behind that gate of bronze which he saw before

him--that sacred portal by which all the kingdoms of the world

communicated with the kingdom of heaven, whose august vicar had secluded

himself behind those lofty, silent walls? From where he stood Pierre

gazed on that gate with its metal panels studded with large square-headed

nails, and wondered what it defended, what it concealed, what it shut off

from the view, with its stern, forbidding air, recalling that of the gate

of some ancient fortress. What kind of world would he find behind it,

what treasures of human charity jealously preserved in yonder gloom, what

revivifying hope for the new nations hungering for fraternity and

justice? He took pleasure in fancying, in picturing the one holy pastor

of humanity, ever watching in the depths of that closed palace, and,

while the nations strayed into hatred, preparing all for the final reign

of Jesus, and at last proclaiming the advent of that reign by

transforming our democracies into the one great Christian community

promised by the Saviour. Assuredly the world's future was being prepared

behind that bronze portal; assuredly it was that future which would issue

forth.

But all at once Pierre was amazed to find himself face to face with

Monsignor Nani, who had just left the Vatican on his way to the

neighbouring Palace of the Inquisition, where, as Assessor, he had his

residence.

"Ah! Monsignor," said Pierre, "I am very pleased. My friend Monsieur

Habert is going to present me to his cousin, Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo,

and I think I shall obtain the audience I so greatly desire."

Monsignor Nani smiled with his usual amiable yet keen expression. "Yes,

yes, I know." But, correcting himself as it were, he added: "I share your

satisfaction, my dear son. Only, you must be prudent." And then, as if

fearing that the young priest might have understood by his first words

that he had just seen Monsignor Gamba, the most easily terrified prelate

of the whole prudent pontifical family, he related that he had been

running about since an early hour on behalf of two French ladies, who

likewise were dying of a desire to see the Pope. However, he greatly

feared that the help he was giving them would not prove successful.

"I will confess to you, Monsignor," replied Pierre, "that I myself was

getting very discouraged. Yes, it is high time I should find a little

comfort, for my sojourn here is hardly calculated to brace my soul."

He went on in this strain, allowing it to be seen that the sights of Rome

were finally destroying his faith. Such days as those which he had spent

on the Palatine and along the Appian Way, in the Catacombs and at St.

Peter's, grievously disturbed him, spoilt his dream of Christianity

rejuvenated and triumphant. He emerged from them full of doubt and

growing lassitude, having already lost much of his usually rebellious

enthusiasm.

Still smiling, Monsignor Nani listened and nodded approvingly. Yes, no

doubt that was the fatal result. He seemed to have foreseen it, and to be

well satisfied thereat. "At all events, my dear son," said he,

"everything is going on well, since you are now certain that you will see

his Holiness."

"That is true, Monsignor; I have placed my only hope in the very just and

perspicacious Leo XIII. He alone can judge me, since he alone can

recognise in my book his own ideas, which I think I have very faithfully

set forth. Ah! if he be willing he will, in Jesus' name and by democracy

and science, save this old world of ours!"

Pierre's enthusiasm was returning again, and Nani, smiling more and more

affably with his piercing eyes and thin lips, again expressed approval:

"Certainly; quite so, my dear son. You will speak to him, you will see."

Then as they both raised their heads and looked towards the Vatican, Nani

carried his amiability so far as to undeceive Pierre with respect to the

Pope's bed-room. No, the window where a light was seen every evening was

simply that of a landing where the gas was kept burning almost all night.

The window of his Holiness's bed-chamber was the second one farther on.

Then both relapsed into silence, equally grave as they continued to gaze

at the facade.

"Well, till we meet again, my dear son," said Nani at last. "You will

tell me of your interview, I hope."

As soon as Pierre was alone he went in by the bronze portal, his heart

beating violently, as if he were entering some redoubtable sanctuary

where the future happiness of mankind was elaborated. A sentry was on

duty there, a Swiss guard, who walked slowly up and down in a grey-blue

cloak, below which one only caught a glimpse of his baggy red, black, and

yellow breeches; and it seemed as if this cloak of sober hue were

purposely cast over a disguise in order to conceal its strangeness, which

had become irksome. Then, on the right-hand, came the covered stairway

conducting to the Court of San Damaso; but to reach the Sixtine Chapel it

was necessary to follow a long gallery, with columns on either hand, and

ascend the royal staircase, the Scala Regia. And in this realm of the

gigantic, where every dimension is exaggerated and replete with

overpowering majesty, Pierre's breath came short as he ascended the broad

steps.

He was much surprised on entering the Sixtine Chapel, for it at first

seemed to him small, a sort of rectangular and lofty hall, with a

delicate screen of white marble separating the part where guests

congregate on the occasion of great ceremonies from the choir where the

cardinals sit on simple oaken benches, while the inferior prelates remain

standing behind them. On a low platform to the right of the soberly

adorned altar is the pontifical throne; while in the wall on the left

opens the narrow singing gallery with its balcony of marble. And for

everything suddenly to spread out and soar into the infinite one must

raise one's head, allow one's eyes to ascend from the huge fresco of the

Last Judgment, occupying the whole of the end wall, to the paintings

which cover the vaulted ceiling down to the cornice extending between the

twelve windows of white glass, six on either hand.

Fortunately there were only three or four quiet tourists there; and

Pierre at once perceived Narcisse Habert occupying one of the cardinals'

seats above the steps where the train-bearers crouch. Motionless, and

with his head somewhat thrown back, the young man seemed to be in

ecstasy. But it was not the work of Michael Angelo that he thus

contemplated. His eyes never strayed from one of the earlier frescoes

below the cornice; and on recognising the priest he contented himself

with murmuring: "Ah! my friend, just look at the Botticelli." Then, with

dreamy eyes, he relapsed into a state of rapture.

Pierre, for his part, had received a great shock both in heart and in

mind, overpowered as he was by the superhuman genius of Michael Angelo.

The rest vanished; there only remained, up yonder, as in a limitless

heaven, the extraordinary creations of the master's art. That which at

first surprised one was that the painter should have been the sole

artisan of the mighty work. No marble cutters, no bronze workers, no

gilders, no one of another calling had intervened. The painter with his

brush had sufficed for all--for the pilasters, columns, and cornices of

marble, for the statues and the ornaments of bronze, for the _fleurons_

and roses of gold, for the whole of the wondrously rich decorative work

which surrounded the frescoes. And Pierre imagined Michael Angelo on the

day when the bare vault was handed over to him, covered with plaster,

offering only a flat white surface, hundreds of square yards to be

adorned. And he pictured him face to face with that huge white page,

refusing all help, driving all inquisitive folks away, jealously,

violently shutting himself up alone with his gigantic task, spending four

and a half years in fierce solitude, and day by day adding to his

colossal work of creation. Ah! that mighty work, a task to fill a whole

lifetime, a task which he must have begun with quiet confidence in his

own will and power, drawing, as it were, an entire world from his brain

and flinging it there with the ceaseless flow of creative virility in the

full heyday of its omnipotence.

And Pierre was yet more overcome when he began to examine these

presentments of humanity, magnified as by the eyes of a visionary,

overflowing in mighty sympathetic pages of cyclopean symbolisation. Royal

grace and nobility, sovereign peacefulness and power--every beauty shone

out like natural florescence. And there was perfect science, the most

audacious foreshortening risked with the certainty of success--an

everlasting triumph of technique over the difficulty which an arched

surface presented. And, in particular, there was wonderful simplicity of

medium; matter was reduced almost to nothingness; a few colours were used

broadly without any studied search for effect or brilliancy. Yet that

sufficed, the blood seethed freely, the muscles projected, the figures

became animated and stood out of their frames with such energy and dash

that it seemed as if a flame were flashing by aloft, endowing all those

beings with superhuman and immortal life. Life, aye, it was life, which

burst forth and triumphed--mighty, swarming life, miraculous life, the

creation of one sole hand possessed of the supreme gift--simplicity

blended with power.

That a philosophical system, a record of the whole of human destiny,

should have been found therein, with the creation of the world, of man,

and of woman, the fall, the chastisement, then the redemption, and

finally God's judgment on the last day--this was a matter on which Pierre

was unable to dwell, at this first visit, in the wondering stupor into

which the paintings threw him. But he could not help noticing how the

human body, its beauty, its power, and its grace were exalted! Ah! that

regal Jehovah, at once terrible and paternal, carried off amid the

whirlwind of his creation, his arms outstretched and giving birth to

worlds! And that superb and nobly outlined Adam, with extended hand, whom

Jehovah, though he touch him not, animates with his finger--a wondrous

and admirable gesture, leaving a sacred space between the finger of the

Creator and that of the created--a tiny space, in which, nevertheless,

abides all the infinite of the invisible and the mysterious. And then

that powerful yet adorable Eve, that Eve with the sturdy flanks fit for

the bearing of humanity, that Eve with the proud, tender grace of a woman

bent on being loved even to perdition, that Eve embodying the whole of

woman with her fecundity, her seductiveness, her empire! Moreover, even

the decorative figures of the pilasters at the corners of the frescoes

celebrate the triumph of the flesh: there are the twenty young men

radiant in their nakedness, with incomparable splendour of torso and of

limb, and such intensity of life that a craze for motion seems to carry

them off, bend them, throw them over in superb attitudes. And between the

windows are the giants, the prophets and the sibyls--man and woman

deified, with inordinate wealth of muscle and grandeur of intellectual

expression. There is Jeremiah with his elbow resting on his knee and his

chin on his hand, plunged as he is in reflection--in the very depths of

his visions and his dreams; there is the Sibylla Erithraea, so pure of

profile, so young despite the opulence of her form, and with one finger

resting on the open book of destiny; there is Isaiah with the thick lips

of truth, virile and haughty, his head half turned and his hand raised

with a gesture of command; there is the Sibylla Cumaea, terrifying with

her science and her old age, her wrinkled countenance, her vulture's

nose, her square protruding chin; there is Jonah cast forth by the whale,

and wondrously foreshortened, his torso twisted, his arms bent, his head

thrown back, and his mouth agape and shouting: and there are the others,

all of the same full-blown, majestic family, reigning with the

sovereignty of eternal health and intelligence, and typifying the dream