On the tenth and last day of our sojourn at the hotel, she went to see the Pope.
“May I come inter your sittin’-room?” was her petition at evening. “I am fairly bustin’ to tell you all about it. And if we go inter the public parler, them Englishers will be makin’ fun behind my back. For, you see, ther’s considerable actin’ to be done to tell it jest right.”
I took her into our salon, established her in an arm-chair, and was attentive. I had seen her in her best black silk with the regulation black lace shawl, which generally does duty as a veil, pinned to her scanty hair. Ladies attending the Pope’s levees must dress in black, without bonnets, the head being covered by a black veil. When thus attired, my acquaintance had wound and hung at least half a peck of rosaries upon her arms, “to have ’em handy for the old cretur’s blessin’.” I was now to hear how her husband had hired at the costumer’s the dress-coat prescribed for gentlemen.
“Come down to his heels, if you’ll believe me! He bein’ a spare man, and by no manner of means tall. Sleeves a mile too long. Collar over his ears. A slice of his bald head showed atop of it like a new moon!”
She stopped to laugh, we all joining in heartily.
“Mr. Smith from St. Lewis,—he was along and his coat was as much too small for him as my husband’s was too big for him. Mr. Smith daresn’t breathe for fear of splittin’ it down the back.”
I recollected the story of Cyrus and the two coats, and restrained the suggestion that they might have exchanged garments.
“Eight francs an hour, they paid—one dollar ’n’ sixty cents good money, for the use of each of the bothering machines. Well! when we was all got up to kill as it were—(’twas some like it!) we druv’ off, two carriage-fulls, to the Pope’s Palace—the Vacuum. Up the marble steps we tugged, through five or six monstrous rooms, all precious marbled and gilded and tapestried, into a long hall, more like a town-meeting house than a parler. Stuffed benches along the side, where we all sat down to wait for the old man. Three mortal hours, he kept us coolin’ of our heels after the time advertised for the levy. I hev washed an’ ironed and churned and done my own housework in my day. I ain’t ashamed to say I’d ruther do a good day’s heft at ’em all, than to pass another sech tiresome mornin’. I don’t call it mannerly to tell people when to come, and then not be ready. Mr. Smith, he nearly died in his tight coat with the circulation stopped into both arms. At last, the door at the bottom of the hall was flung open by a fellow in striped breeches, and in he come. A man in a black gownd to each side on him. He is powerful feeble-lookin’, but I will say, aint quite so ancient as I’d expected to see. He leaned upon the arm of one man. Another went ’round the room with ’em, collectin’ of our names to give ’em to him. I forgot to tell you that everybody dropped on their knees, the minute the door opened and we saw who ’twas. That is, except Mr. Smith. He stood straight up, like a brass post. He says, ‘because American citizens hadn’t oughter bend the knee to no human man.’ I say he was afraid on account of the coat. I didn’t jest like kneelin’ myself. So, I saved my conscience by kinder squattin’! So-fashion!”
I was glad “the Englishers” were not by as she “made a cheese” of her skirts by the side of her chair, and was up again in the next breath.
“He wore a white skull-cap and a long white gownd belted at the waist. Real broadcloth ’twas. I thought, at first, ’twas opery flannel or merino, but when he was a-talkin’ to them next me, I managed to pinch a fold of it. ’Twas cloth—high-priced it must ’a been—soft and solid. But after all that’s said and done, he looks like an ole woman and a fat one. Kind face, he hez, and a sort of sweet, greasy smile onto it the whole time. He blessed us all ’round, and said to the Americans how fond he was of their country, and how he hoped we and our children would come back to the True Fold. It didn’t hurt us none to hev him say it, you know, and we hed a fair look at him while one of the black-gowners was a-translatin’ of it. Ther’ was two sisters of charity or abbesses or nuns, or somethin’ of that sort there, who dropped flat onto their faces on the bare floor when he got to them,—and kissed his slipper. White they was—the slippers, I mean—with a gold cross worked onto them. He gave us all his hand to kiss, with the seal-ring held up. I aint much in the habit of that sort o’ thing, and it did go agin my stomach a leetle. So, I tuk his hand, this way”—seizing mine—“and smacked my lips over it without them a-touchin’ on it.”