Hadrian the Seventh

“ Hadrian deftly extracted from him that he had founded and was maintaining a home for a hundred boys of his city, where he provided a complete training in electrical engineering and a fair start in life. His splendid eyes glittered as he spoke of this. It seemed that he had kept his own world in entire ignorance of his ardent effort to be useful; and one naturally enjoys talking of one's own affairs when the proper listener at last is encountered. No: he never had felt inclined to marry and rear a family of his own. ”

“ Rome set herself nobly to work at housing the treasures of art which Hadrian had given. Immense and splendid palaces were planned for them and began to rise on the Esquiline and Celian Hills; and the gracious forms of the old gods were to stand beneath arcades of marble, white and pure as lilies without, mosaic of bright gold within, amid the groves upon Janiculum. Honest men came by their own. There were no unemployed. Consequently, no hearts were soured while hands were used; and anarchy began to fade away into the obscurity of bad old rubbish rejected. The Epistle to the Italians too! ”

“ The election of Hadrian the Seventh was proclaimed in the Conclave. They came to the ceremony of adoration. One by one, Their Eminencies kissed the Supreme Pontiff's foot and hand and cheek. Contact with senile humanity made His juvenile soul shudder. ”

“ Hadrian named to the consistory the Lord Percy of New York as Cardinal-deacon of St. Kyriak-at-the-Baths-of-Diocletian. His Eminency became resplendent in vermilion, tall, refined, reticent, with dark wide dewy eyes. He was admired in silence. The Pope by some accident turned His gaze to Ragna: he had such an aspect as caused His Holiness to look more intently. Ragna's great strong jaw moved as though to munch; and his glance defiantly shifted.
"Your Eminency is free to address Us," the Supreme Pontiff said to Him.
"I wish rather to address the Sacred College," Ragna answered, rising. ”

“ Hadrian was glad. Then came the Times, announcing that Australia, Canada, and South Africa had armed all healthy males between the ages of 17 and 50; and that England was mobilizing the sea-and-land-forces of her Empire. Now the whole world was in battle array. He took out His pyx again, and prayed the prayer of the Danaides, "O King of kings, Most Blessed of the blessed, Most Perfect Mighty One of the perfect, be persuaded and let this come to pass,—avert from Thy race the insolence of men who (for a reason) hate it; and plunge the black-benched pest into the dark abyss." ”

“ Hundreds know it. They are not prevented from saying what they know.—If they dare." Hadrian came down from the throne. A grey shadow hardened the sharpness of the face. The brows and the eyes were drawn into parallels, the latter half-shut; and the thin lips were straight and cruel. Their Eminencies mindfully retired. Van Kristen lingered till the others were gone. "Holy Father," he said, "I guess that You're feeling it about as bad as the next man?"
Hadrian pressed the slim brown hand, on which the cardinalitial sapphire looked so absolutely lovely,
"Perhaps, Percy:" He said. ”

“ Hadrian froze him with a glance of blazing supremacy. "Make no mistake," the Pope said: "We are not intending Ourself to punish your Company, nor to degrade your Companions who so diligently degrade themselves, nor to confer fictitious and unmerited importance upon you by decrees of dissolution or suppression. We do not forget the badness of the agents in the goodness of the cause nor the goodness of the cause in the badness of the agents." ”

“ The Cardinal-Prince-Bishop of Breslau went to the Vatican without any more ado; and the Supreme Pontiff consented to receive.
Hadrian endured an hour of terror. The task of dealing with an emperor—He was inclined to put it from Him as being too great a thing for Him. But He felt inquisitive to know what the Kaiser wanted. He Who sits upon the throne of Peter looks at all the world, knowing that He will see either enemies—or suitors. ”

“ Hadrian also was inquisitive to see the person and the mind of the man whom He invariably had defended as being the only sovereign in Europe whose conduct indicated belief in his own divine right to sovereignty, and as being one of the few delightful persons in the world who can contemplate their own minds and behold they are very good. ”

“ It was the Cardinal-Secretary-of-State who did himself the pleasure of acquainting the Holy Father with the result of Jerry Sant's manœuvre. His Eminency, on the whole, never had had a more congenial duty to perform in all his life. He swirled into the Presence one evening at dusk when Hadrian was waiting for the lamps, sitting by the undraped window watching the dark figures passing over the grey square and the specks of yellow light springing in the houses of the Borgo. Ragna brought a newspaper which he thrust into the Pope's hands. ”

“ It was the mark of a soul verisimilar to his patron's own, of a soul knit to no other: but, whereas the soul of Hadrian had been torn out of seclusion and bitterly buffeted by the world, the soul of Percy Van Kristen preserved its pristine tenderness. The Pope perforce went armed. His deacon remained by the altar.
The consistory was summoned for the twenty-fourth of May. That morning Hadrian woke just on these words of a dream, Oecumenical Council, Pseudopontiff, Heretic. A man with an active brain like His naturally suffers much unconscious cerebration. ”

“ The Pope laughed. "You shall know that George Arthur Rose has had plenty of time for thinking and scheming. His schemes never came to anything, except once; and he certainly never schemed for this. But you understand perhaps that the last twenty years have rendered Hadrian conscious both of His abilities and His limitations, as well as of His requirements; and hence He is able at a glance to describe in detail what He wants. When He wants something, without knowing what He wants, He asks questions. For example, what is that hinged arrangement under Cardinal Courtleigh's ring?" ”

“ They were fortunate in having a capable manager whom every one liked; and his own share didn't amount to much more than playing fives with the boys, and paying the bills, and finding out and getting all the latest dodges. If he could run over and look round the place, say twice a year, say two [Pg 155] months in the year, he was quite willing to take up his abode with Hadrian, if His Holiness really wanted him. As a cardinal-deacon? Oh, that would be a daisy! But—sorry: he never did understand chaff. Hadrian was serious. Van Kristen's grand virginal eyes attentively considered the Pontiff. ”

“ He had that benevolently truculent manner which women deem adorable. As he made his obeisance, Hadrian noted a little lacquered snuff-box in his hand and a frightful bandanna oozing from the pocket of his cassock. His Holiness instantly carried war into the [Pg 274] camp, by reminding Father St. Albans of the bulls of Urban VIII. and Innocent X. which prohibit snuff-taking on pain of excommunication.
"No doubt those bulls are obsolete: but Your Reverency will have the goodness to abstain from practising the filthy habit in Our Presence." ”

“ An idea seems to be forming in Our mind: but as yet,—— Percy, do ask Our friends to tea in the Garden of the Pine-Cone at half-past sixteen o'clock to-day."
The same afternoon after siesta, Hadrian sat at one end of the great white-marble arc-shaped seat. A yard away sixteen cardinals spread their vermilion along the same seat. Little tables stood before them with tea, goat's milk, triscuits and raisins. The Pope preferred to sit here where the pavement was of marble: because lizards avoided it, and their creepy-crawly jerks on grass or gravel shocked his nerves. ”

“ He did not seem to be so very very far away.
"I guess the air of this village suits you, Holy Father," said young Cardinal Percy. "You look like twenty cents this evening."
"Yes, the air is delicious enough: but it is not the air." Hadrian narrated the incident of the morning, ending, "and We have recognised in Ourself a new and unknown power, a perfectly strange capability. We have made experience of a feeling which—well, which We suppose—at any rate will pass for—Love." ”

“ The improvised throne stood alone in the bare corridor: the students clustered up the stairs below it. Hadrian perceived the inevitable odour of hot boy. He produced a sentence wherewith to address them.
"Dear children," he said, feeling as old as Methuselah for the moment, "do learn to love: don't be hard, don't be cruel to any living creature." ”

“ He had learned the trick from Flavio: observing that, if he would not open the door when the cat mewed to go out, the creature remained in the room, but would [Pg 88] not come and sit on his friend's neck, nor agree to anything except the opening of the door. And Hadrian the Seventh was quite prepared to be hustled and hullabaloed-at, as Leo the Thirteenth had been hullabaloed at and hustled in 1878: but no earthly power should extort Apostolic Benediction from His hand and lips, except at a place and a time of His Own choosing. They might push this Pope on to the inner balcony ”

“ No, such a pose was mere pride. The Servant of the servants of God must not fear to soil the whiteness of His robe in any kind of ordure. Also, to save others was the best way of retrieving oneself.
He sent for the nearest cardinals. Ragna, Saviolli, Semphill, Sterling, Talacryn, Carvale, Van Kristen, Gentilotto, Leighton, Whitehead, responded to the summons. Hadrian received them in the throne-room, but without formality; and contrived to give them an easy and genial greeting. They thought Him to be looking seriously ill. ”

“ Thus, perhaps, by Nature's own method, might Love be brought down among men. So with a stern and trenchant rebuff He rebuked presumption. On the following Sunday, [Pg 181] a Pontifical Breve was read from every Catholic pulpit in the Kingdom of England at home and beyond the seas. It proclaimed the dogma of Equality as scientifically, historically, and obviously false and impracticable: as a diabolical delusion for the ruin of souls. Hadrian did not soar away in metaphysical intricacies, but confined His argument to the broad highway whereon the ordinary man might walk at ease. ”

“ Cardinal Nefski, you say, is marked by a fearful experience. Lately? Was it as fearful as that?"
"Ten weeks ago, Holiness; and a much more fearful experience."
"Eminency, bring him also to Castel Gandolfo. Some of you must attend the Pope. Let Us have those to whom We can be useful."
When he was alone, Hadrian examined the safe in the bedroom wall. It added to His consciousness of His immense potentiality. What a number of long-planned things He could do now! With its contents, He would open a current account at the Bank of Italy. ”

“ Kelts and Catholics throughout the world set up howls; and compared Hadrian to Honorius to the advantage of the latter. "From a Catholic point of view," wrote one clerical gentleman (who in youth, as an attaché in Paris, had been known as La Belle Anthropophage) , "it is impossible to blame Hadrian too severely." He was ruined, they said with unctuous rectitude; and He was going to sell the Vatican Treasures in order to provide an iniquitous provision for a disreputable and private old age. Naturally they judged by their own standard. All Catholics do. ”

“ It is a fatal and futile thing to leave letters unanswered, especially impertinent letters. Silence does not "choke off": in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, it breeds bile which is bound to be spurted sooner or later. It is a poor kind of a man who cannot indite a letter which is a guillotine, a closure about which there can be no possible mistake. By this means, uncertainty and its vile consequences are prevented. Hadrian perfectly knew how to deliver Himself. ”

“ The Pope very slowly went-up the last two flights of stairs to the top corridor. No man can come into a human tragedy without some vibrance of sentiment; and Hadrian's senses, keen by nature, were intensified by art. He entered the room of the black-haired Erse, who most certainly had kissed the blarney-stone. Och! Blessins on the Howly Forther's blessid head and might the howly saints receive Him into glory. The Pope wrote a blessing in a garish birthday book; and got out of the room as quickly as possible. ”

“ Berstein, of beggars on horseback. "He, who is born of a hen, always scratches the ground," asserted the Benedic [Pg 86] tine Cacciatore: and "He, who was a frog, is now a king," Labeur quoted from the Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter.
They brought Him before the altar; and set Him in a crimson-velvet chair, asking what pontifical name He would choose.
"Hadrian the Seventh:" the response came unhesitatingly, undemonstratively.
"Your Holiness would perhaps prefer to be called Leo, or Pius, or Gregory, as is the modern manner?" the Cardinal-Dean inquired with imperious suavity. ”

“ Italy had not got over her taste for steel."
"Will she ever get over it, Holiness?"
"Of course She will—when She has killed you—or Us. Nothing but a tragedy will break a habit of centuries:" the Pope said, as He rang the bell at the door of the college.
The old porter Aurelio opened, gasped, dropped on his knees. Hadrian and Cardinal Carvale entered. A long corridor extended right and left. ”

“ For we all are clearly marked to get that which we give. Nothing is irrevocable on this orb of earth. Nothing is final: for, after this world is the world to come. Therefore, let us move, let us gladly move, move with the times, really move. God always is merciful."
Hence, as Supreme Pontiff, Hadrian would practise the principle of renunciation. ”