The monk nodded.
"A country without a king is bad! But to carry the matter just a trifle farther,—to dream of Christendom without a Pope—"
"You would not dare!" exclaimed Benilo with real or feigned surprise, "you would not dare! In the presence of the whole Christian world? Rome can do nothing without the Sun,—nothing without the Pope. Take away his benediction: 'Urbi et Orbi'—What would prosper?"
"You are a poet and a Roman. I am a monk and a native of Aragon."
Benilo shrugged his shoulders.
"'Tis but the old question: Cui bono? How many pontiffs have, within the memory of man, defiled the chair of Saint Peter? Who are your reformers? Libertines and gossipers in the taverns of the Suburra, among fried fish, painted women, and garlic; in prosperity proud, in adversity cowards, but infamous ever! The fifth Gregory alone soars so high above the earth, he sees not the vermin, the mire beneath."
"Perhaps they wished to let the mire accumulate, to furnish work for the iron broom of your tramontane saint! Are not his shoulders bent in holy contemplation, like the moon in the first quarter? Is he not shocked at the sight of misery and of dishevelled despair? His sensitive nerves would see them with the hair dressed and bound like that of an antique statue."
"Ay! And the feudal barons stick in his palate like the hook in the mouth of the dog fish."
"We want no more martyrs! The light of the glow-worm continues to shine after the death of the insect."
"It was a conclave, that disposed of the usurper, John XVI."