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me in the discharge of my modest duties. Personally, be it said, I have

no justice to render; I am but an employee whose duty is to classify

matters and draw up documents concerning them. Their Eminences, the

members of the Congregation, will alone pronounce judgment on your book.

And assuredly they will do so with the help of the Holy Spirit. You will

only have to bow to their sentence when it shall have been ratified by

his Holiness."

Then he broke off the interview by rising, and Pierre was obliged to do

the same. The Dominican's words were virtually identical with those that

had fallen from Monsignor Fornaro, but they were spoken with cutting

frankness, a sort of tranquil bravery. On all sides Pierre came into

collision with the same anonymous force, the same powerful engine whose

component parts sought to ignore one another. For a long time yet, no

doubt, he would be sent from one to the other, without ever finding the

volitional element which reasoned and acted. And the only thing that he

could do was to bow to it all.

However, before going off, it occurred to him once more to mention the

name of Monsignor Nani, the powerful effect of which he had begun to

realise. "I ask your pardon," he said, "for having disturbed you to no

purpose, but I simply deferred to the kind advice of Monsignor Nani, who

has condescended to show me some interest."

The effect of these words was unexpected. Again did Father Dangelis's

thin face brighten into a smile, but with a twist of the lips, sharp with

ironical contempt. He had become yet paler, and his keen intelligent eyes

were flaming. "Ah! it was Monsignor Nani who sent you!" he said. "Well,

if you think you need a protector, it is useless for you to apply to any

other than himself. He is all-powerful. Go to see him; go to see him!"

And that was the only encouragement Pierre derived from his visit: the

advice to go back to the man who had sent him. At this he felt that he

was losing ground, and he resolved to return home in order to reflect on

things and try to understand them before taking any further steps. The

idea of questioning Don Vigilio at once occurred to him, and that same

evening after supper he luckily met the secretary in the corridor, just

as, candle in hand, he was on his way to bed.

"I have so many things that I should like to say to you," Pierre said to

him. "Can you kindly come to my rooms for a moment?"

But the other promptly silenced him with a gesture, and then whispered:

"Didn't you see Abbe Paparelli on the first floor? He was following us,

I'm sure."

Pierre often saw the train-bearer roaming about the house, and greatly

disliked his stealthy, prying ways. However, he had hitherto attached no

importance to him, and was therefore much surprised by Don Vigilio's

question. The other, without awaiting his reply, had returned to the end

of the corridor, where for a long while he remained listening. Then he

came back on tip-toe, blew out his candle, and darted into Pierre's

sitting-room. "There--that's done," he murmured directly the door was

shut. "But if it is all the same to you, we won't stop in this

sitting-room. Let us go into your bed-room. Two walls are better than

one."

When the lamp had been placed on the table and they found themselves

seated face to face in that bare, faded bed-chamber, Pierre noticed that

the secretary was suffering from a more violent attack of fever than

usual. His thin puny figure was shivering from head to foot, and his

ardent eyes had never before blazed so blackly in his ravaged, yellow

face. "Are you poorly?" asked Pierre. "I don't want to tire you."

"Poorly, yes, I am on fire--but I want to talk. I can't bear it any

longer. One always has to relieve oneself some day or other."

Was it his complaint that he desired to relieve; or was he anxious to

break his long silence in order that it might not stifle him? This at

first remained uncertain. He immediately asked for an account of the

steps that Pierre had lately taken, and became yet more restless when he

heard how the other had been received by Cardinal Sarno, Monsignor

Fornaro, and Father Dangelis. "Yes, that's quite it," he repeated,

"nothing astonishes me nowadays, and yet I feel indignant on your

account. Yes, it doesn't concern me, but all the same it makes me ill,

for it reminds me of all my own troubles. You must not rely on Cardinal

Sarno, remember, for he is always elsewhere, with his mind far away, and

has never helped anybody. But that Fornaro, that Fornaro!"

"He seemed to me very amiable, even kindly disposed," replied Pierre;

"and I really think that after our interview, he will considerably soften

his report."

"He! Why, the gentler he was with you the more grievously he will saddle

you! He will devour you, fatten himself with such easy prey. Ah! you

don't know him, _dilizioso_ that he is, ever on the watch to rear his own

fortune on the troubles of poor devils whose defeat is bound to please

the powerful. I prefer the other one, Father Dangelis, a terrible man, no

doubt, but frank and brave and of superior mind. I must admit, however,

that he would burn you like a handful of straw if he were the master. And

ah! if I could tell you everything, if I could show you the frightful

under-side of this world of ours, the monstrous, ravenous ambition, the

abominable network of intrigues, venality, cowardice, treachery, and even

crime!"

On seeing Don Vigilio so excited, in such a blaze of spite, Pierre

thought of extracting from him some of the many items of information

which he had hitherto sought in vain. "Well, tell me merely what is the

position of my affair," he responded. "When I questioned you on my

arrival here you said that nothing had yet reached Cardinal Boccanera.

But all information must now have been collected, and you must know of

it. And, by the way, Monsignor Fornaro told me that three French bishops

had asked that my book should be prosecuted. Three bishops, is it

possible?"

Don Vigilio shrugged his shoulders. "Ah!" said he, "yours is an innocent

soul! I'm surprised that there were _only_ three! Yes, several documents

relating to your affair are in our hands; and, moreover, things have

turned out much as I suspected. The three bishops are first the Bishop of

Tarbes, who evidently carries out the vengeance of the Fathers of

Lourdes; and then the Bishops of Poitiers and Evreux, who are both known

as uncompromising Ultramontanists and passionate adversaries of Cardinal

Bergerot. The Cardinal, you know, is regarded with disfavour at the

Vatican, where his Gallican ideas and broad liberal mind provoke perfect

anger. And don't seek for anything else. The whole affair lies in that:

an execution which the powerful Fathers of Lourdes demand of his

Holiness, and a desire to reach and strike Cardinal Bergerot through your

book, by means of the letter of approval which he imprudently wrote to

you and which you published by way of preface. For a long time past the

condemnations of the Index have largely been secret knock-down blows

levelled at Churchmen. Denunciation reigns supreme, and the law applied

is that of good pleasure. I could tell you some almost incredible things,

how perfectly innocent books have been selected among a hundred for the

sole object of killing an idea or a man; for the blow is almost always

levelled at some one behind the author, some one higher than he is. And

there is such a hot-bed of intrigue, such a source of abuses in this

institution of the Index, that it is tottering, and even among those who

surround the Pope it is felt that it must soon be freshly regulated if it

is not to fall into complete discredit. I well understand that the Church

should endeavour to retain universal power, and govern by every fit

weapon, but the weapons must be such as one can use without their

injustice leading to revolt, or their antique childishness provoking

merriment!"

Pierre listened with dolorous astonishment in his heart. Since he had

been at Rome and had seen the Fathers of the Grotto saluted and feared

there, holding an authoritative position, thanks to the large alms which

they contributed to the Peter's Pence, he had felt that they were behind

the proceedings instituted against him, and realised that he would have

to pay for a certain page of his book in which he had called attention to

an iniquitous displacement of fortune at Lourdes, a frightful spectacle

which made one doubt the very existence of the Divinity, a continual

cause of battle and conflict which would disappear in the truly Christian

society of to-morrow. And he could also now understand that his delight

at the loss of the temporal power must have caused a scandal, and

especially that the unfortunate expression "a new religion" had alone

been sufficient to arm _delatores_ against him. But that which amazed and

grieved him was to learn that Cardinal Bergerot's letter was looked upon

as a crime, and that his (Pierre's) book was denounced and condemned in

order that adversaries who dared not attack the venerable pastor face to

face might, deal him a cowardly blow from behind. The thought of

afflicting that saintly man, of serving as the implement to strike him in

his ardent charity, cruelly grieved Pierre. And how bitter and

disheartening it was to find the most hideous questions of pride and

money, ambition and appetite, running riot with the most ferocious

egotism, beneath the quarrels of those leaders of the Church who ought

only to have contended together in love for the poor!

And then Pierre's mind revolted against that supremely odious and idiotic

Index. He now understood how it worked, from the arrival of the

denunciations to the public posting of the titles of the condemned works.

He had just seen the Secretary of the Congregation, Father Dangelis, to

whom the denunciations came, and who then investigated the affair,

collecting all documents and information concerning it with the passion

of a cultivated authoritarian monk, who dreamt of ruling minds and

consciences as in the heroic days of the Inquisition. Then, too, Pierre

had visited one of the consultive prelates, Monsignor Fornaro, who was so

ambitious and affable, and so subtle a theologian that he would have

discovered attacks against the faith in a treatise on algebra, had his

interests required it. Next there were the infrequent meetings of the

cardinals, who at long intervals voted for the interdiction of some

hostile book, deeply regretting that they could not suppress them all;

and finally came the Pope, approving and signing the decrees, which was a

mere formality, for were not all books guilty? But what an extraordinary

wretched Bastille of the past was that aged Index, that senile

institution now sunk into second childhood. One realised that it must

have been a formidable power when books were rare and the Church had

tribunals of blood and fire to enforce her edicts. But books had so

greatly multiplied, the written, printed thoughts of mankind had swollen

into such a deep broad river, that they had swept all opposition away,

and now the Index was swamped and reduced to powerlessness, compelled

more and more to limit its field of action, to confine itself to the

examination of the writings of ecclesiastics, and even in this respect it

was becoming corrupt, fouled by the worst passions and changed into an

instrument of intrigue, hatred, and vengeance. Ah! that confession of

decay, of paralysis which grew more and more complete amidst the scornful

indifference of the nations. To think that Catholicism, the once glorious

agent of civilisation, had come to such a pass that it cast books into

hell-fire by the heap; and what books they were, almost the entire

literature, history, philosophy, and science of the past and the present!

Few works, indeed, are published nowadays that would not fall under the

ban of the Church. If she seems to close her eyes, it is in order to

avoid the impossible task of hunting out and destroying everything. Yet

she stubbornly insists on retaining a semblance of sovereign authority

over human intelligence, just as some very aged queen, dispossessed of

her states and henceforth without judges or executioners, might continue

to deliver vain sentences to which only an infinitesimal minority would

pay heed. But imagine the Church momentarily victorious, miraculously

mastering the modern world, and ask yourself what she, with her tribunals

to condemn and her gendarmes to enforce, would do with human thought.

Imagine a strict application of the Index regulations: no printer able to

put anything whatever to press without the approval of his bishop, and

even then every book laid before the Congregation, the past expunged, the

present throttled, subjected to an intellectual Reign of Terror! Would

not the closing of every library perforce ensue, would not the long

heritage of written thought be cast into prison, would not the future be

barred, would not all progress, all conquest of knowledge, be totally

arrested? Rome herself is nowadays a terrible example of such a

disastrous experiment--Rome with her congealed soil, her dead sap, killed

by centuries of papal government, Rome which has become so barren that

not a man, not a work has sprung from her midst even after five and

twenty years of awakening and liberty! And who would accept such a state

of things, not among people of revolutionary mind, but among those of

religious mind that might possess any culture and breadth of view?

Plainly enough it was all mere childishness and absurdity.

Deep silence reigned, and Pierre, quite upset by his reflections, made a

gesture of despair whilst glancing at Don Vigilio, who sat speechless in

front of him. For a moment longer, amidst the death-like quiescence of

that old sleeping mansion, both continued silent, seated face to face in

the closed chamber which the lamp illumined with a peaceful glow. But at