We were ranged on either side, the women to the right, the men to the left of the throne, which was an ordinary looking tribune. It must be confessed that later the fair sex were vigorously elbowed to the rear. In America the women would have been well to the front, but the dear old Fatherland indulges in no such new fangled ideas of sex equality. So the polite male pilgrims by superior strength usurped all the good places. A tall, handsome man in evening clothes—solitary in this respect, with the exception of the Pope's body suite—patrolled the floor, obsequiously followed by the Suiss in their hideous garb—a murrain on Michelangelo's taste if he designed such hideous uniforms! I fancied that he was no less than a prince of the royal blood, so masterly was his bearing. When I discovered that he was the Roman correspondent of a well-known North German gazette my respect for the newspaper man abroad was vastly increased. The power of the press——!
"His Holiness comes!" was announced, and this time it was not a false alarm. From a gallery facing the Sistine Chapel entered the inevitable Swiss Guards; followed the officers of the Papal household, grave and reverend seigniors; a knot of ecclesiastics, all wearing purple; Monsignor Pick, the Papal prothonotary and a man of might in business affairs; then a few stragglers—anonymous persons, stout, bald, officials—and finally Pope Pius X.
He was attired in pure white, even to the sash that compassed his plump little figure. A cross depended from his neck. He immediately and in the most matter of fact fashion held out his hand to be kissed. I noted the whiteness of the nervous hand tendered me, bearing the ring of Peter, a large, square emerald surrounded by diamonds. Though seventy, the Pope looks ten years younger. He is slightly under medium height. His hair is white, his complexion dark red, veined, and not very healthy. He seems to need fresh air and exercise; the great gardens of the Vatican are no compensation for this man of sorrows, homesick for the sultry lagoons and stretches of gleaming waters in his old diocese of Venice. If the human in him could call out it would voice Venice, not the Vatican. The flesh of his face is what the painters call "ecclesiastical flesh," large in grain. His nose broad, unaristocratic, his brows strong and harmonious. His eyes may be brown, but they seemed black and brilliant and piercing. He moved with silent alertness. An active, well-preserved man, though he achieved the Biblical three-score and ten in June, 1905. I noted, too, with satisfaction, the shapely ears, artistic ears, musical ears, their lobes freely detached. A certain resemblance to Pius IX there is; he is not so amiable as was that good-tempered Pope who was nicknamed by his intimate friend, the Abbé Liszt, Pia Nina, because of his musical proclivities. Altogether, I found another than the Pope I had expected. This, then, was that exile—an exile, yet in his native land; a prisoner in sight of the city of which he is the spiritual ruler; a prince over all principalities and dominions, yet withal a feeble old man, whose life might be imperilled if he ventured into the streets of Rome.
The Pope had now finished his circle of pilgrims and stood at the other end of the Sala. With him stood his chamberlains and ecclesiastics. Suddenly a voice from the balcony, which I saw for the first time, bade us come nearer. I was thunder-struck. This was back to the prose of life with a vengeance. We obeyed instructions. A narrow aisle was made, with the Pope in the middle perspective. Then the voice, which I discovered by this time issued from the mouth of a bearded person behind a huge, glittering camera, cried out in peremptory and true photographer style:——
"One, two, three! Thank your Holiness."
And so we were photographed. In the Vatican and photographed! Old Rome has her surprises for the patronising visitors from the New World. It was too business-like for me, and I would have gone away, but I couldn't, as the audience had only begun. The Pope went to his throne and received the heads of the pilgrims. A certain presumptuous American told him that the church musical revolution was not much appreciated in America. He also asked, rash person that he was, why an example was not set at St. Peter's itself, where the previous Sunday he had heard, and to his horror, a florid mass by Milozzi, as florid and operatic as any he had been forced to endure in New York before the new order of things. A discreet poke in the ribs enlightened him to the fact that at a general audience such questions are not in good taste.
The Pope spoke a few words in a ringing barytone voice. He said that he loved Germany, loved its Emperor; that every morning his second prayer was for Germany—his first, was it for the hundredth wandering sheep of the flock, France? That he did not explain. He blessed us, and his singing voice proved singularly rich, resonant and pure in intonation for an old man. Decidedly Pius X is musical; he plays the pianoforte it is said, with taste. The pilgrims thundered the Te Deum a second time, with such pious fervour that the venerable walls of the Sala Regia shook with their lung vibrations. Then the Papal suite followed the sacred figure out of the chamber and the buzzing began. The women wanted to know—and indignant were their inflections—why a certain lady attired in scarlet, hat and all, was permitted within the sacred precincts. The men hurried, jostling each other, for their precious umbrellas. The umbrella in Germany is the symbol of the mediæval sword. We broke ranks and tumbled into the now sunny daylight, many going on the wings of thirst to the Piazza Santi Apostoli, which, notwithstanding its venerable name, has amber medicine for parched German gullets.
Pius X is a democratic man. He may be seen by the faithful at any time. He has organised a number of athletic clubs for young Romans, taking a keen interest in their doings. He is an impulsive man and has many enemies in his own household. He has expressed his intention of ridding Rome of its superfluous monks, those unattached ones who make life a burden by their importunings and beggaries in Rome.
His personal energy was expressed while I was in Rome by his very spirited rebuke to some members of the athletic clubs at an audience in the Vatican. There was some disorder while the Pontiff spoke. He fixed a noisy group with an angry glance:—"Those who do not wish to hear me—well, there is the open door!"
Another incident, and one I neglected to relate in its proper place;—As Pius proceeded along the line of kneeling figures during the German audience he encountered a little, jolly-looking priest, evidently known to him. A smile, benign, witty, delicately humourous, appeared on his lips. For a moment he seemed more Celt than Latin. There was no hint of the sardonic smile which is said to have crossed the faces of Roman augurs. It was merely a friendly recognition tempered by humility, as if he meant to ask:—"Why do you need my blessing, friend?" And it was the most human smile that I would imagine worn by a Pope. It told me more of his character than even did his meek and resigned pose when the official photographer of the Vatican called out his sonorous "Una, due, tre!"