“I tell you that you can’t have seen the Pope, for the monstrous reason that ... I have it from a secret and unimpeachable source—the real Pope has been kidnapped.”
This astonishing revelation had the most unexpected effect upon Julius. He suddenly let go Amédée’s arm, and running on ahead, he called out at the top of his voice right across the vicolo:
“Oh, no! no! Not that! Good God! No! Not that!”
Then, drawing near Amédée again:
“What! I succeed—with great difficulty—in clearing my mind of the whole thing; I convince myself that there’s nothing to be expected—nothing to be hoped for—nothing to be admitted; that Anthime has been taken in—that the whole thing is quackery—that there’s nothing left to do but to laugh at it—when up you come and say: ‘Hold hard! There’s been a mistake—a miscalculation—we must begin again.’ Oh, no! Not a bit of it! Never in the world! I shan’t budge. If he isn’t the real one, so much the worse.”
Fleurissoire was horrified.
“But,” said he, “the Church....” And he regretted that his hoarseness prevented any flights of eloquence. “But supposing the Church herself is taken in?”
Julius planted himself in front of him, standing crosswise so as almost to block up the way, and in a mocking, cutting voice which was not like him:
“Well! What the dickens does it matter to you?”
Then a doubt fell upon Fleurissoire—a fresh, formless, atrocious doubt which was absorbed in some indefinable way into the thick mass of his discomfort—Julius, Julius himself, this Julius to whom he was talking, this Julius to whom he clung with all the longing of his heart-broken faith—this Julius was not the real Julius either.