"I shall follow your Holiness," Talacryn answered. The others looked their interest.
The Pope smiled. "Note please, that We are not uttering infallible dogma, but the fallible opinion of a private clergyman, weak-kneed perhaps, or worldly. We know no more than this,—that Christ died for all men." Rising He began to throw on his white cloak, for it was the hour before sunset and the air was cooler. "Eminencies," He continued, "We learn much from you. This discussion was an accident, due to Our negligence. The case which We intended to submit to you was not the case of an outsider: but, while you have been talking, We have reached the solution of Our problem by another road. We request you immediately to publish the news that to-morrow at ten o'clock the Supreme Pontiff will sing a requiem in St. Peter's for the repose of the soul of Umberto the Fearless King of Italy."
An English Catholic painter came to paint the Pope's portrait. Hadrian knew him for a vulgar and officious liar: detested him; and, at the first application, had refused to sit to him. His Holiness was not at all in love with His Own aspect. It annoyed Him because it just missed the ideal which He admired; and He did not want to be perpetuated. Also, He loathed the cad's Herkomeresque-cum-Camera esque technique and his quite earthy imagination: from that palette, the spiritual, the intellectual, the noble, could not come. But, He thought of the man's pinched asking face, of his dreadful nagging wife, of his children—of the rejection of all his pictures by the Academy this year, of the fact that he was being supplanted by younger grander minds. Ousted from livelihood! Horrible! Love your enemies! Ouf! The Pontiff would give six sittings of one hour each, on condition that He might read all the time.
The privilege alone was an inestimable advertisement. Alfred Elms looked upon himself as likely to become the fashion. Hadrian sat in the garden for six siestas; and He read in Plato's Phaidōn, which is the perfection of human language, until His lineaments were composed in an expression of keen gentle fastidious rapture. Elms's professional efforts at conversation were annulled quietly and incisively. The Pope blessed him and handfuls of rosaries at the end of every sitting. Sometimes His Holiness was so elated with the beauty of the Greek of His book, that He even was able with a little self-compulsion to utter a few kindly and intelligent criticisms of the painter's work. That was startlingly real, mirror-like. The varied whiteness of marble and flannel and vellum and the healthy pallor of flesh, gained purity from the notes of the reddish-brown hair and the translucent violet of the amethyst. The clean light of the thing was admirably rendered. The painter could delineate, and tint with his hand, that which his eyes beheld, with blameless accuracy. What his eyes did not see, the soul, the mind, the habit of his model, he as accurately omitted. Hadrian made him glad with a compliment on the perfection of the connection between his directive brain and his executive fingers. At the end of the last sitting also He gave him two hundred pounds, and the picture, and a written indulgence in the hour of death. The painter went away quite happy, and with his fortune made. He never knew how vehemently his work was detested, how profoundly he himself was scorned.
August was deliciously warm. The Pope moved the Court for a few weeks to the palace on the Nemorensian lake which the Prince of Cinthyanum lent. It was a vast barrack of a palace. Although three sides of it actually were in the little city, and a public thoroughfare pierced its central archway, yet it suited Hadrian admirably. Approached through numerous antechambers and picture-galleries, there was a huge room frescoed in simulation of a princely tent. Here they placed a throne for receptions. There was a great balcony high above the porch, facing a two-mile avenue of elms. When the faithful congregated (as they often did) the Pope could shew Himself. There were innumerable chambers of state and private suites, where the curial cardinals took up their abode. But high on the fourth side of the palace, with no access except by several little private stairs, Hadrian found an apartment of five small rooms which was quite secluded. From its windows, (the palace stood on the crest of the cliff) a stone might be dropped into the fathomless lake three hundred feet below; and, beyond the lake, the eye soared to Diana's Forest of oaks and the spurs of the Alban Mount. A private stair and passage led to the incomparable (and almost unknown) gardens, which crowned the rocks with verdure and descended by winding paths to the mirrored waters of the lake. Here the Pontiff established Himself, with the noise of the world of men and its limitations on the one side; and, on the other, quiet and illimitable space wherein the soul might spread wings and explore the empyrean.
Half-way down the cliff, a little ruined shrine stood in the garden. The broken grey-brown tracery of the window framed an exquisite panorama of water and distant hills, brilliantly blue and green. The nook stood away from the main path; and was quite enclosed by sun-kissed foliage, and canopied with vines and ivy. Hadrian was spending a morning here, alone with cigarettes and the Epinikia of Pindaros and His thoughts. The air was fragrant with the perfume of southernwood and the generous sun. He rested in a low cane-chair, soaking Himself in light and peace. His eyes were turned to the far distant shore where the great grove of ilex cast deep tralucid shadows in the water. A tiny slip of pink shot from sunlight to shade: another followed: two tiny splashes of silver spray arose, and vanished: two blue-black dots appeared in the rippled mirror. Hadrian envied the young swimmers. He remembered all the wild unfettered boundless sensuous joy of only a little while ago. Was the fisherman still down there with his boat and the brown boy who rowed it? He wondered what the world would say if the Pope were to swim in sunlit Nemi—or in moonlit. Ah, the mild tepidity of moonlit water, the clean cold caress of moonlit air! Not that He cared jot or tittle for what the world might say—personally. No. But—— No. If He were to ask for the use of the boat, tongues would clack. And He could not go alone with the deliberate intention. Still—didn't Peter swim in Galilee. Weren't the Attendolo gardens private? Some night He might stroll down to the shore: the water was fathomless at once: there need be no wading with the ripples horribly creeping up one's flesh—Yaff! But the toads on the path, and the lizards and the serpents in the grass—oh no. Then, thus it must be: the Pope must not go to seek His pleasure: if God should deign to afford His Vicegerent the recreation of swimming, an opportunity would be provided. Otherwise——
Little footsteps pattered down the glade. His retreat was about to be invaded.
Three children burst through the shrubs—and stood transfixed. They were a couple of black-eyed black-haired girls, and a very pale-coloured very delicately-articulated slim and stalwart baby-boy with dark-star-like eyes and brows superbly drawn. All Hadrian's fearful terror of children paralyzed Him. These limpid glances made Him feel such a hackneyed old sinner. But He shewed no outward tremor, looking gently and genially at His visitors, and wondering what (in the name of all the gods) He ought to say or do. Three nurses and an athletic tailor-made lady added their presence.
"A thousand pardons, sir," a nurse exclaimed;—"O Santissimo Padre!"—Six knees flopped on the ground.
"Missy," the boy announced, "I have found a white father. Why have I seen a white father before never?" His utterance was very deliberate, and his English quite devoid of accented syllables.