第 36 页

and left the statues behold him pass with all their bare flesh. There is

Jupiter, there is Apollo, there is Venus the _dominatrix_, there is Pan,

the universal god in whose laugh the joys of earth ring out. Nereids

bathe in transparent water. Bacchantes roll, unveiled, in the warm grass.

Centaurs gallop by carrying lovely girls, faint with rapture, on their

steaming haunches. Ariadne is surprised by Bacchus, Ganymede fondles the

eagle, Adonis fires youth and maiden with his flame. And on and on passes

the weak, white old man, swaying on his low chair, amidst that splendid

triumph, that display and glorification of the flesh, which shouts aloud

the omnipotence of Nature, of everlasting matter! Since they have found

it again, exhumed it, and honoured it, that it is which once more reigns

there imperishable; and in vain have they set vine leaves on the statues,

even as they have swathed the huge figures of Michael Angelo; sex still

flares on all sides, life overflows, its germs course in torrents through

the veins of the world. Near by, in that Vatican library of incomparable

wealth, where all human science lies slumbering, there lurks a yet more

terrible danger--the danger of an explosion which would sweep away

everything, Vatican and St. Peter's also, if one day the books in their

turn were to awake and speak aloud as speak the beauty of Venus and the

manliness of Apollo. But the white, diaphanous old man seems neither to

see nor to hear, and the huge heads of Jupiter, the trunks of Hercules,

the equivocal statues of Antinous continue to watch him as he passes on!

However, Narcisse had become impatient, and, going in search of an

attendant, he learnt from him that his Holiness had already gone down. To

shorten the distance, indeed, the _cortege_ often passes along a kind of

open gallery leading towards the Mint. "Well, let us go down as well,"

said Narcisse to Pierre; "I will try to show you the gardens."

Down below, in the vestibule, a door of which opened on to a broad path,

he spoke to another attendant, a former pontifical soldier whom he

personally knew. The man at once let him pass with Pierre, but was unable

to tell him whether Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo had accompanied his

Holiness that day.

"No matter," resumed Narcisse when he and his companion were alone in the

path; "I don't despair of meeting him--and these, you see, are the famous

gardens of the Vatican."

They are very extensive grounds, and the Pope can go quite two and a half

miles by passing along the paths of the wood, the vineyard, and the

kitchen garden. Occupying the plateau of the Vatican hill, which the

medieval wall of Leo IV still girdles, the gardens are separated from the

neighbouring valleys as by a fortified rampart. The wall formerly

stretched to the castle of Sant' Angelo, thereby forming what was known

as the Leonine City. No inquisitive eyes can peer into the grounds

excepting from the dome of St. Peter's, which casts its huge shadow over

them during the hot summer weather. They are, too, quite a little world,

which each pope has taken pleasure in embellishing. There is a large

parterre with lawns of geometrical patterns, planted with handsome palms

and adorned with lemon and orange trees in pots; there is a less formal,

a shadier garden, where, amidst deep plantations of yoke-elms, you find

Giovanni Vesanzio's fountain, the Aquilone, and Pius IV's old Casino;

then, too, there are the woods with their superb evergreen oaks, their

thickets of plane-trees, acacias, and pines, intersected by broad

avenues, which are delightfully pleasant for leisurely strolls; and

finally, on turning to the left, beyond other clumps of trees, come the

kitchen garden and the vineyard, the last well tended.

Whilst walking through the wood Narcisse told Pierre of the life led by

the Holy Father in these gardens. He strolls in them every second day

when the weather allows. Formerly the popes left the Vatican for the

Quirinal, which is cooler and healthier, as soon as May arrived; and

spent the dog days at Castle Gandolfo on the margins of the Lake of

Albano. But nowadays the only summer residence possessed by his Holiness

is a virtually intact tower of the old rampart of Leo IV. He here spends

the hottest days, and has even erected a sort of pavilion beside it for

the accommodation of his suite. Narcisse, like one at home, went in and

secured permission for Pierre to glance at the one room occupied by the

Pope, a spacious round chamber with semispherical ceiling, on which are

painted the heavens with symbolical figures of the constellations; one of

the latter, the lion, having two stars for eyes--stars which a system of

lighting causes to sparkle during the night. The walls of the tower are

so thick that after blocking up a window, a kind of room, for the

accommodation of a couch, has been contrived in the embrasure. Beside

this couch the only furniture is a large work-table, a dining-table with

flaps, and a large regal arm-chair, a mass of gilding, one of the gifts

of the Pope's episcopal jubilee. And you dream of the days of solitude

and perfect silence, spent in that low donjon hall, where the coolness of

a tomb prevails whilst the heavy suns of August are scorching overpowered

Rome.

An astronomical observatory has been installed in another tower,

surmounted by a little white cupola, which you espy amidst the greenery;

and under the trees there is also a Swiss chalet, where Leo XIII is fond

of resting. He sometimes goes on foot to the kitchen garden, and takes

much interest in the vineyard, visiting it to see if the grapes are

ripening and if the vintage will be a good one. What most astonished

Pierre, however, was to learn that the Holy Father had been very fond of

"sport" before age had weakened him. He was indeed passionately addicted

to bird snaring. Broad-meshed nets were hung on either side of a path on

the fringe of a plantation, and in the middle of the path were placed

cages containing the decoys, whose songs soon attracted all the birds of

the neighbourhood--red-breasts, white-throats, black-caps, nightingales,

fig-peckers of all sorts. And when a numerous company of them was

gathered together Leo XIII, seated out of sight and watching, would

suddenly clap his hands and startle the birds, which flew up and were

caught by the wings in the meshes of the nets. All that then remained to

be done was to take them out of the nets and stifle them by a touch of

the thumb. Roast fig-peckers are delicious.*

* Perhaps so; but what a delightful pastime for the Vicar of the

Divinity!--Trans.

As Pierre came back through the wood he had another surprise. He suddenly

lighted on a "Grotto of Lourdes," a miniature imitation of the original,

built of rocks and blocks of cement. And such was his emotion at the

sight that he could not conceal it. "It's true, then!" said he. "I was

told of it, but I thought that the Holy Father was of loftier mind--free

from all such base superstitions!"

"Oh!" replied Narcisse, "I fancy that the grotto dates from Pius IX, who

evinced especial gratitude to our Lady of Lourdes. At all events, it must

be a gift, and Leo XIII simply keeps it in repair."

For a few moments Pierre remained motionless and silent before that

imitation grotto, that childish plaything. Some zealously devout visitors

had left their visiting cards in the cracks of the cement-work! For his

part, he felt very sad, and followed his companion with bowed head,

lamenting the wretched idiocy of the world. Then, on emerging from the

wood, on again reaching the parterre, he raised his eyes.

Ah! how exquisite in spite of everything was that decline of a lovely

day, and what a victorious charm ascended from the soil in that part of

the gardens. There, in front of that bare, noble, burning parterre, far

more than under the languishing foliage of the wood or among the fruitful

vines, Pierre realised the strength of Nature. Above the grass growing

meagrely over the compartments of geometrical pattern which the pathways

traced there were barely a few low shrubs, dwarf roses, aloes, rare tufts

of withering flowers. Some green bushes still described the escutcheon of

Pius IX in accordance with the strange taste of former times. And amidst

the warm silence one only heard the faint crystalline murmur of the water

trickling from the basin of the central fountain. But all Rome, its

ardent heavens, sovereign grace, and conquering voluptuousness, seemed

with their own soul to animate this vast rectangular patch of decorative

gardening, this mosaic of verdure, which in its semi-abandonment and

scorched decay assumed an aspect of melancholy pride, instinct with the

ever returning quiver of a passion of fire that could not die. Some

antique vases and statues, whitely nude under the setting sun, skirted

the parterres. And above the aroma of eucalyptus and of pine, stronger

even than that of the ripening oranges, there rose the odour of the

large, bitter box-shrubs, so laden with pungent life that it disturbed

one as one passed as if indeed it were the very scent of the fecundity of

that ancient soil saturated with the dust of generations.

"It's very strange that we have not met his Holiness," exclaimed

Narcisse. "Perhaps his carriage took the other path through the wood

while we were in the tower."

Then, reverting to Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo, the _attache_ explained

that the functions of _Copiere_, or papal cup-bearer, which his cousin

should have discharged as one of the four _Camerieri segreti

partecipanti_ had become purely honorary since the dinners offered to

diplomatists or in honour of newly consecrated bishops had been given by

the Cardinal Secretary of State. Monsignor Gamba, whose cowardice and

nullity were legendary, seemed therefore to have no other _role_ than

that of enlivening Leo XIII, whose favour he had won by his incessant

flattery and the anecdotes which he was ever relating about both the

black and the white worlds. Indeed this fat, amiable man, who could even

be obliging when his interests were not in question, was a perfect

newspaper, brimful of tittle-tattle, disdaining no item of gossip

whatever, even if it came from the kitchens. And thus he was quietly

marching towards the cardinalate, certain of obtaining the hat without

other exertion than that of bringing a budget of gossip to beguile the

pleasant hours of the promenade. And Heaven knew that he was always able

to garner an abundant harvest of news in that closed Vatican swarming

with prelates of every kind, in that womanless pontifical family of old

begowned bachelors, all secretly exercised by vast ambitions, covert and

revolting rivalries, and ferocious hatreds, which, it is said, are still

sometimes carried as far as the good old poison of ancient days.

All at once Narcisse stopped. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "I was certain of it.

There's the Holy Father! But we are not in luck. He won't even see us; he

is about to get into his carriage again."

As he spoke a carriage drew up at the verge of the wood, and a little

_cortege_ emerging from a narrow path, went towards it.

Pierre felt as if he had received a great blow in the heart. Motionless

beside his companion, and half hidden by a lofty vase containing a

lemon-tree, it was only from a distance that he was able to see the white

old man, looking so frail and slender in the wavy folds of his white

cassock, and walking so very slowly with short, gliding steps. The young

priest could scarcely distinguish the emaciated face of old diaphanous

ivory, emphasised by a large nose which jutted out above thin lips.

However, the Pontiff's black eyes were glittering with an inquisitive

smile, while his right ear was inclined towards Monsignor Gamba del

Zoppo, who was doubtless finishing some story at once rich and short,

flowery and dignified. And on the left walked a Noble Guard; and two

other prelates followed.

It was but a familiar apparition; Leo XIII was already climbing into the

closed carriage. And Pierre, in the midst of that large, odoriferous,

burning garden, again experienced the singular emotion which had come

upon him in the Gallery of the Candelabra while he was picturing the Pope

on his way between the Apollos and Venuses radiant in their triumphant

nudity. There, however, it was only pagan art which had celebrated the

eternity of life, the superb, almighty powers of Nature. But here he had

beheld the Pontiff steeped in Nature itself, in Nature clad in the most

lovely, most voluptuous, most passionate guise. Ah! that Pope, that old

man strolling with his Divinity of grief, humility, and renunciation

along the paths of those gardens of love, in the languid evenings of the

hot summer days, beneath the caressing scents of pine and eucalyptus,

ripe oranges, and tall, acrid box-shrubs! The whole atmosphere around him

proclaimed the powers of the great god Pan. How pleasant was the thought

of living there, amidst that magnificence of heaven and of earth, of

loving the beauty of woman and of rejoicing in the fruitfulness of all!

And suddenly the decisive truth burst forth that from a land of such joy

and light it was only possible for a temporal religion of conquest and

political domination to rise; not the mystical, pain-fraught religion of

the North--the religion of the soul!

However, Narcisse led the young priest away, telling him other anecdotes

as they went--anecdotes of the occasional _bonhomie_ of Leo XIII, who

would stop to chat with the gardeners, and question them about the health

of the trees and the sale of the oranges. And he also mentioned the

Pope's former passion for a pair of gazelles, sent him from Africa, two

graceful creatures which he had been fond of caressing, and at whose

death he had shed tears. But Pierre no longer listened. When they found

themselves on the Piazza of St. Peter's, he turned round and gazed at the

Vatican once more.

His eyes had fallen on the gate of bronze, and he remembered having