The Vatican swindle

by André Gide

IV

When he found himself in front of the Castle of St. Angelo, Fleurissoire was filled with bitter disappointment. The huge mass of building rose from the middle of an inner court-yard, access to which was forbidden to the public, and into which only such visitors as were provided with cards were allowed to enter. It was even specified that they must be accompanied by one of the guardians.

These excessive precautions, to be sure, confirmed Amédée’s suspicions, but they also enabled him to estimate the extravagant difficulty of his task. Fleurissoire then, having at last got rid of Baptistin, was wandering up and down the quay, which was almost deserted at that hour of the evening, and alongside the outer wall which defends the approach to the castle. Backwards and forwards in front of the drawbridge, he passed and repassed, with gloomy and despondent thoughts; then he would retreat once more to the bank of the Tiber and endeavour from there to get a better view of the building over the top of the first enclosure.

He had not hitherto paid any particular attention to a priest (there are so many of them in Rome) who was sitting on a bench not far from there, and who, though apparently plunged in his breviary, had been observing him for some time past. The worthy ecclesiastic had long and abundant locks of silver, and the freshness of his youthful complexion—the sure sign of purity of life—contrasted curiously with that apanage of old age. From the face alone one would have recognised a priest, and from that peculiarly respectable something which distinguishes him—a French priest. As Fleurissoire was about to pass by the bench for the third time, the abbé suddenly rose, came towards him, and in a voice which had in it something of a sob:

“What!” he said, “I am not the only one! You too are seeking him!”

So saying, he hid his face in his hands and the sobs which he had been too long controlling burst forth. Then suddenly recovering himself:

“Imprudent! Imprudent that I am! Hide your tears! Stifle your sighs!” ... Then, seizing Amédée by the arm: “We must not stay here, Sir. We are observed. The emotion I am unable to master has been remarked already.”

Amédée by this time was following him in a state of stupefaction.

“But how,” he at last managed to ask, “how could you guess what I am here for?”

“Pray Heaven that no one else has been permitted to suspect it! But how could your anxious face, your sorrowful looks, as you examined this spot, escape the notice of one who has haunted it day and night for the last three weeks? Alas! my dear sir, as soon as I saw you, some presentiment, some warning from on high, told me that a sister soul.... Hush! Someone is coming. For Heaven’s sake, pretend complete unconcern.”

A man carrying vegetables was coming along the quay from the opposite direction. Immediately, without changing his tone of voice, but speaking in a slightly more animated manner, and as if he were continuing a sentence:

“And that is why Virginia cigars, which some smokers appreciate so highly, can be lighted only at the flame of a candle, after you have removed the thin straw, that goes through the middle of them, and whose object is to keep open a little channel in which the smoke can circulate freely. A Virginia that doesn’t draw well is fit for nothing but to be thrown away. I have seen smokers who are particular as to what they smoke, throw away as many as six, my dear sir, before finding one that suits them....”

And as soon as the man had passed them:

“Did you see how he looked at us? It was essential to put him off the scent.”

“What!” cried Fleurissoire, flabbergasted, “is it possible that a common market gardener can be one of the persons of whom we must beware?”

“I cannot certify that it is so, sir, but I imagine it. The neighbourhood of this castle is watched with particular care; agents of a special police are continually patrolling it. In order not to arouse suspicion, they assume the most varied disguises. The people we have to deal with are so clever—so clever! And we so credulous, so naturally confiding! But if I were to tell you, sir, that I was within an ace of ruining everything simply because I gave my modest luggage to an ordinary-looking facchino to carry from the station to the lodging where I am staying! He spoke French, and though I have spoken Italian fluently ever since I was a child ... you yourself, I am persuaded, would have felt the same emotion.... I couldn’t help giving way to it when I heard someone speaking my mother tongue in a foreign land.... Well! This facchino....”

“Was he one of them?”

“He was one of them. I was able to make practically sure of it. Fortunately I had said very little.”

“You fill me with alarm,” said Fleurissoire; “the same thing happened to me the evening I arrived—yesterday, that is—I fell in with a guide to whom I entrusted my portmanteau, and who talked French.”

“Good heavens!” cried the curé, struck with terror; “could his name have been Baptistin?”

“Baptistin! That was it!” wailed Amédée, who felt his knees giving way beneath him.

“Unhappy man! What did you say to him?” The curé pressed his arm.

“Nothing that I can remember.”

“Think! Think! Try to remember, for Heaven’s sake!”

“No, really!” stammered Amédée, terrified; “I don’t think I said anything to him.”

“What did you let out?”

“No, nothing, I assure you. But you do well to warn me.”

“What hotel did he take you to?”

“I’m not in a hotel. I’m in private lodgings.”

“God save us! But you must be somewhere.”

“Oh, I’m in a little street which you certainly don’t know,” stuttered Fleurissoire, in great confusion. “It’s of no consequence. I won’t stay on there.”

“Be very careful! If you leave suddenly, it’ll look as if you suspected something.”

“Yes, perhaps it will. You’re right. I had better not leave at once.”

“How I thank a merciful Heaven that you arrived in Rome to-day! One day later and I should have missed you! To-morrow—no later than to-morrow—I’m obliged to leave for Naples in order to see a saintly and important personage, who is secretly devoting himself to the cause.”

“Could it be the Cardinal San-Felice?” asked Fleurissoire, trembling with emotion.

The curé took a step or two back in amazement:

“How did you know?” Then drawing nearer: “But why should I be astonished? He is the only person in Naples who is in the secret.”

“Do you ... know him?”

“Do I know him? Alas! my dear sir, it is to him I owe.... But no matter! Were you thinking of going to see him?”

“I suppose so; if I must.”

“He is the best of men....” With a rapid whisk of his hand, he wiped the corner of his eye. “You know where to find him, of course?”

“I suppose anyone could tell me. Everyone knows him in Naples.”

“Naturally! But I don’t suppose you are going to inform all Naples of your visit. Surely, you can’t have been told of his participation in ... you know what, and perhaps entrusted with some message for him, without having been instructed at the same time how to gain access to him.”

“Pardon me,” said Fleurissoire timidly, for Arnica had given him no such instructions.

“What! were you meaning to go and see him straight off—in the archbishop’s palace, perhaps!—and speak to him point-blank?”

“I confess that....”

“But are you aware, sir,” went on the other severely, “are you aware that you run the risk of getting him imprisoned too?”

He seemed so deeply vexed that Fleurissoire did not dare to speak.

“So sacred a cause confided to such imprudent hands!” murmured Protos, and he took the end of a rosary out of his pocket, then put it back again, then crossed himself feverishly; then turning to his companion:

“Pray tell me, sir, who asked you to concern yourself with this matter. Whose instructions are you obeying?”

“Forgive me, Monsieur l’abbé,” said Fleurissoire in some confusion, “I was given no instructions by anyone. I am just a poor distraught soul seeking on my own behalf.”

These humble words disarmed the curé; he held out his hand to Fleurissoire:

“I spoke to you roughly.... But such dangers surround us.” Then, after a short hesitation:

“Look here! Will you come with me to-morrow? We will go and see my friend together....” and raising his eyes to Heaven: “Yes, I dare to call him my friend,” he repeated in a heartfelt voice. “Let’s sit down for a minute on this bench. I will write him a line which we will both sign, to give him notice of our visit. If it is posted before six o’clock (eighteen o’clock, as they say here), he will get it to-morrow morning in time for him to be ready to receive us by twelve; we might even, I dare say, have lunch with him.”

They sat down. Protos took a note-book from his pocket, and under Amédée’s haggard eyes began on a virgin sheet as follows:

“Dear old cock....”

Then, seeing the other’s stupefaction, he smiled very calmly:

“So, it’s the Cardinal you’d have addressed if you’d had your way?”

After that he became more amicable and consented to explain things to Amédée: once a week the Cardinal San-Felice was in the habit of leaving the archbishop’s palace in the dress of a simple abbé; he became plain chaplain Bardolotti and made his way to a modest villa on the slopes of Mount Vomero, where he received a few intimate friends, and the secret letters which the initiated addressed him under his assumed name. But even in this vulgar disguise, he could feel no security—he could not be sure that his letters were not opened in the post, and begged therefore that nothing of any significance should be said in any letter and that the tone of a letter should in no way suggest his Eminence, or have in it the slightest trace of respect.

Now that he was let into the secret, Amédée smiled in his turn.

“‘Dear old cock’.... Let me think! What shall we say to the dear old cock?” joked the abbé, hesitating with pencil in hand. “Ah!... ‘I’ve got a funny old chap in tow!’ (Yes, yes! It’s all right! I know the kind of style.) ‘I’ll bring him along, so dig out a bottle or two of Falernian and to-morrow we three will have a party.’ ... Here! you sign too.”

“Perhaps I’d better not sign my own name.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter about yours,” returned Protos, and after the name of Amédée Fleurissoire he wrote the word Cave.[G]

“Oh, that’s very clever!”

“What! are you astonished at my signing the name Cave? Your head is full of nothing but the Vatican Cave. You must know, my good Monsieur Fleurissoire, that Cave is a Latin word too, and that it means BEWARE!”

All this was said in so potent and so strange a tone that poor Amédée felt a cold shiver run down his spine. It lasted only a second; Father Cave had already recovered his affability when he handed him the envelope on which he had just inscribed the Cardinal’s apocryphal address.

“Will you post it yourself? It’s more prudent; curés’ letters are opened. And now we’d better part; we mustn’t be seen together any longer. Let’s agree to meet to-morrow morning in the train that leaves for Naples at seven-thirty. Third class of course. I shall not be in this dress, naturally. What an idea! You must look out for just an ordinary Calabrian peasant. (I don’t want to have to cut my hair.) Good-bye! Good-bye!”

He went off, making little signs with his hand.

“Thanks be to Heaven that I met that excellent abbé!” murmured Fleurissoire as he returned homewards. “What should I have done without him?”

And Protos murmured as he went:

“You shall have a jolly good dose of your Cardinal, my boy!... Why, if he had been left to himself, I’m hanged if he wouldn’t have gone to see the real one.”