Lord of the World

  CHAPTER III

  I

  The Cardinal said very little to Percy when they met again that evening,beyond congratulating him on the way he had borne himself with the Pope.It seemed that the priest had done right by his extreme frankness. Thenhe told him of his duties.

  Percy was to retain the couple of rooms that had been put at hisdisposal; he was to say mass, as a rule, in the Cardinal's oratory; andafter that, at nine, he was to present himself for instructions: he wasto dine at noon with the Cardinal, after which he was to considerhimself at liberty till _Ave Maria_: then, once more he was to be at hismaster's disposal until supper. The work he would principally have to dowould be the reading of all English correspondence, and the drawing upof a report upon it.

  Percy found it a very pleasant and serene life, and the sense of homedeepened every day. He had an abundance of time to himself, which heoccupied resolutely in relaxation. From eight to nine he usually walkedabroad, going sedately through the streets with his senses passive,looking into churches, watching the people, and gradually absorbing thestrange naturalness of life under ancient conditions. At times itappeared to him like an historical dream; at times it seemed that therewas no other reality; that the silent, tense world of moderncivilisation was itself a phantom, and that here was the simplenaturalness of the soul's childhood back again. Even the reading of theEnglish correspondence did not greatly affect him, for the stream of hismind was beginning to run clear again in this sweet old channel; and heread, dissected, analysed and diagnosed with a deepening tranquillity.

  There was not, after all, a great deal of news. It was a kind of lullafter storm. Felsenburgh was still in retirement; he had refused theoffers made to him by France and Italy, as that of England; and,although nothing definite was announced, it seemed that he was confininghimself at present to an unofficial attitude. Meanwhile the Parliamentsof Europe were busy in the preliminary stages of code-revision. Nothingwould be done, it was understood, until the autumn sessions.

  Life in Rome was very strange. The city had now become not only thecentre of faith but, in a sense, a microcosm of it. It was divided intofour huge quarters--Anglo-Saxon, Latin, Teutonic and Eastern--besidesTrastevere, which was occupied almost entirely by Papal offices,seminaries, and schools. Anglo-Saxondom occupied the southwesternquarter, now entirely covered with houses, including the Aventine, theCelian and Testaccio. The Latins inhabited old Rome, between the Courseand the river; the Teutons the northeastern quarter, bounded on thesouth by St. Laurence's Street; and the Easterns the remaining quarter,of which the centre was the Lateran. In this manner the true Romans werescarcely conscious of intrusion; they possessed a multitude of their ownchurches, they were allowed to revel in narrow, dark streets and holdtheir markets; and it was here that Percy usually walked, in a passionof historical retrospect. But the other quarters were strange enough,too. It was curious to see how a progeny of Gothic churches, served bynorthern priests, had grown up naturally in the Anglo-Saxon and Teutonicdistricts, and how the wide, grey streets, the neat pavements, thesevere houses, showed how the northerns had not yet realised therequirements of southern life. The Easterns, on the other hand,resembled the Latins; their streets were as narrow and dark, theirsmells as overwhelming, their churches as dirty and as homely, and theircolours even more brilliant.

  Outside the walls the confusion was indescribable. If the cityrepresented a carved miniature of the world, the suburbs represented thesame model broken into a thousand pieces, tumbled in a bag and shot outat random. So far as the eye could see, on all sides from the roof ofthe Vatican, there stretched an endless plain of house-roofs, broken byspires, towers, domes and chimneys, under which lived human beings ofevery race beneath the sun. Here were the great manufactories, themonster buildings of the new world, the stations, the schools, theoffices, all under secular dominion, yet surrounded by six millions ofsouls who lived here for love of religion. It was these who haddespaired of modern life, tired out with change and effort, who had fledfrom the new system for refuge to the Church, but who could not obtainleave to live in the city itself. New houses were continually springingup in all directions. A gigantic compass, fixed by one leg in Rome, andwith a span of five miles, would, if twirled, revolve through packedstreets through its entire circle. Beyond that too houses stretched intothe indefinite distance.

  But Percy did not realise the significance of all that he saw, until theoccasion of the Pope's name-day towards the end of August.

  It was yet cool and early, when he followed his patron, whom he was toserve as chaplain, along the broad passages of the Vatican towards theroom where the Pope and Cardinals were to assemble. Through a window, ashe looked out into the Piazza, the crowd was yet more dense, if thatwere possible, than it had been an hour before. The huge oval square wascobbled with heads, through which ran a broad road, kept by papal troopsfor the passage of the carriages; and up the broad ribbon, white in theeastern light, came monstrous vehicles, a blaze of gilding and colourand cream tint; slow cheers swelled up and died, and through all camethe rush and patter of wheels over the stones, like the sound of atide-swept pebbly beach.

  As they waited in an ante-chamber, halted by the pressure in front andbehind--a pack of scarlet and white and purple--he looked out again, andrealised what he had known only intellectually before, that here beforehis eyes was the royalty of the old world assembled--and he began toperceive its significance.

  Round the steps of the basilica spread a great fan of coaches, eachyoked to eight horses--the white of France and Spain, the black ofGermany, Italy and Russia, and the cream-coloured of England. Thosestood out in the near half-circle, and beyond was the sweep of thelesser powers: Greece, Norway, Sweden, Roumania and the Balkan States.One, the Turk, was alone wanting, he reminded himself. The emblems ofsome were visible--eagles, lions, leopards--guarding the royal crownabove the roof of each. From the foot of the steps to the head ran abroad scarlet carpet, lined with soldiers.

  Percy leaned against the shutter, and began to meditate. Here was allthat was left of Royalty. He had seen their palaces before, here andthere in the various quarters, with standards flying, andscarlet-liveried men lounging on the steps. He had raised his hat adozen times as a landau thundered past him up the Course; he had evenseen the lilies of France and the leopards of England pass together inthe solemn parade of the Pincian Hill. He had read in the papers everynow and again during the last five years that family after family hadmade its way to Rome, after papal recognition had been granted; he hadbeen told by the Cardinal on the previous evening that William ofEngland, with his Consort, had landed at Ostia in the morning and thatthe tale of the Powers was complete. But he had never before realisedthe stupendous, overwhelming fact of the assembly of the world's royaltyunder the shadow of Peter's Throne, nor the appalling danger that itspresence constituted in the midst of a democratic world. That world, heknew, affected to laugh at the folly and the childishness of it all--atthe desperate play-acting of Divine Right on the part of fallen anddespised families; but the same world, he knew very well, had not yetlost quite all its sentiment; and if that sentiment should happen tobecome resentful---

  The pressure relaxed; Percy slipped out of the recess, and followed inthe slow-moving stream.

  Half-an-hour later he was in his place among the ecclesiastics, as thepapal procession came out through the glimmering dusk of the chapel ofthe Blessed Sacrament into the nave of the enormous church; but evenbefore he had entered the chapel he heard the quiet roar of recognitionand the cry of the trumpets that greeted the Supreme Pontiff as he cameout, a hundred yards ahead, borne on the _sedia gestatoria_, with thefans going behind him. When Percy himself came out, five minutes later,walking in his quaternion, and saw the sight that was waiting, heremembered with a sudden throb at his heart that other sight he had seenin London in a summer dawn three months before....

  Far ahead, seeming to cleave its way through the surging heads, like thepoop of an ancient ship, moved the canopy beneath which sat
the Lord ofthe world, and between him and the priest, as if it were the wake ofthat same ship, swayed the gorgeous procession--Protonotaries Apostolic,Generals of Religious Orders and the rest--making its way along withwhite, gold, scarlet and silver foam between the living banks on eitherside. Overhead hung the splendid barrel of the roof, and far in frontthe haven of God's altar reared its monstrous pillars, beneath whichburned the seven yellow stars that were the harbour lights of sanctity.It was an astonishing sight, but too vast and bewildering to do anythingbut oppress the observers with a consciousness of their own futility.The enormous enclosed air, the giant statues, the dim and distant roofs,the indescribable concert of sound--of the movement of feet, the murmurof ten thousand voices, the peal of organs like the crying of gnats, thethin celestial music--the faint suggestive smell of incense and men andbruised bay and myrtle--and, supreme above all, the vibrant atmosphereof human emotion, shot with supernatural aspiration, as the Hope of theWorld, the holder of Divine Vice-Royalty, passed on his way to standbetween God and man--this affected the priest as the action of a drugthat at once lulls and stimulates, that blinds while it gives newvision, that deafens while it opens stopped ears, that exalts while itplunges into new gulfs of consciousness. Here, then, was the otherformulated answer to the problem of life. The two Cities of Augustinelay for him to choose. The one was that of a world self-originated,self-organised and self-sufficient, interpreted by such men as Marx andHerve, socialists, materialists, and, in the end, hedonists, summed upat last in Felsenburgh. The other lay displayed in the sight he sawbefore him, telling of a Creator and of a creation, of a Divine purpose,a redemption, and a world transcendent and eternal from which all sprangand to which all moved. One of the two, John and Julian, was the Vicar,and the other the Ape, of God.... And Percy's heart in one more spasm ofconviction made its choice....

  But the summit was not yet reached.

  As Percy came at last out from the nave beneath the dome, on his way tothe tribune beyond the papal throne, he became aware of a new element.

  A great space was cleared about the altar and confession, extending, ashe could see at least on his side, to the point that marked the entranceto the transepts; at this point ran rails straight across from side toside, continuing the lines of the nave. Beyond this red-hung barrier laya gradual slope of faces, white and motionless; a glimmer of steelbounded it, and above, a third of the distance down the transept, rosein solemn serried array a line of canopies. These were of scarlet, likecardinalitial baldachini, but upon the upright surface of each burnedgigantic coats supported by beasts and topped by crowns. Under each wasa figure or two--no more--in splendid isolation, and through theinterspaces between the thrones showed again a misty slope of faces.

  His heart quickened as he saw it--as he swept his eyes round and acrossto the right and saw as in a mirror the replica of the left in the righttransept. It was there then that they sat--those lonely survivors ofthat strange company of persons who, till half-a-century ago, hadreigned as God's temporal Vicegerents with the consent of theirsubjects. They were unrecognised, now, save by Him from whom they drewtheir sovereignty--pinnacles clustering and hanging from a dome, fromwhich the walls had been withdrawn. These were men and women who hadlearned at last that power comes from above, and their title to rulecame not from their subjects but from the Supreme Ruler ofall--shepherds without sheep, captains without soldiers to command. Itwas piteous--horribly piteous, yet inspiring. The act of faith was sosublime; and Percy's heart quickened as he understood it. These, then,men and women like himself, were not ashamed to appeal from man to God,to assume insignia which the world regarded as playthings, but which tothem were emblems of supernatural commission. Was there not mirroredhere, he asked himself, some far-off shadow of One Who rode on the coltof an ass amid the sneers of the great and the enthusiasm ofchildren?...

  * * * * *

  It was yet more kindling as the mass went on, and he saw the malesovereigns come down to do their services at the altar, and to go to andfro between it and the Throne. There they went bareheaded, the statelysilent figures. The English king, once again _Fidei Defensor_, bore thetrain in place of the old king of Spain, who, with the Austrian Emperor,alone of all European sovereigns, had preserved the unbroken continuityof faith. The old man leaned over his fald-stool, mumbling and weeping,even crying out now and again in love and devotion, as, like Simeon, hesaw his Salvation. The Austrian Emperor twice administered the Lavabo;the German sovereign, who had lost his throne and all but his life uponhis conversion four years before, by a new privilege placed and withdrewthe cushion, as his Lord kneeled before the Lord of them both. Somovement by movement the gorgeous drama was enacted; the murmuring ofthe crowds died to a stillness that was but one wordless prayer as thetiny White Disc rose between the white hands, and the thin angelic musicpealed in the dome. For here was the one hope of these thousands, asmighty and as little as once within the Manger. There was none otherthat fought for them but only God. Surely then, if the blood of men andthe tears of women could not avail to move the Judge and Observer of allfrom His silence, surely at least here the bloodless Death of His onlySon, that once on Calvary had darkened heaven and rent the earth,pleaded now with such sorrowful splendour upon this island of faith amida sea of laughter and hatred--this at least must avail! How could itnot?

  * * * * *

  Percy had just sat down, tired out with the long ceremonies, when thedoor opened abruptly, and the Cardinal, still in his robes, came inswiftly, shutting the door behind him.

  "Father Franklin," he said, in a strange breathless voice, "there is theworst of news. Felsenburgh is appointed President of Europe."