“I know it is something delightful, Monsignore mio,” she replied, “but I cannot say just what.”
“Well, I want you to visit the antique Madonna,” he said.
She looked at him, uncomprehending.
He pointed to the veiled shrine in the Borghese Chapel, near which they stood. “Don Francesco will be here in a moment with a candle,” he said. “I prepared all, because I knew you would want to go. I could not invite a party, you know; but you belong to the church and have a special devotion to our Madonna.”
The Signora could not reply. Such a swift fulfilment of her wish moved her too deeply for words. She kissed the hand of her kind friend, and looked across the church to the tabernacle of the Blessed Sacrament with the almost spoken thought: “I am going to see your Mother.” To visit that sacred shrine was to her as near to seeing the Mother of God face to face as one could come on earth, without a miracle.
Presently appeared the custodian, bearing a lighted candle and a bunch of keys; he opened a small door beside the chapel. They ascended a narrow, winding stair, without any light except the one they carried, and passed a long, arched corridor where the walls almost touched their elbows at either side, and the vault just cleared their heads above. This corridor was between the side wall of the chapel and the wall of the adjoining sacristy. Another door opened, and they entered a cross corridor leading to one of the balconies of the chapel—one of those beautiful gilded balconies the Signora had so many times wished to get into. She stepped into this now, and looked down through the chapel, out into the church, and across to the Sistine Chapel, the columns, pictures, and gilded arches of the basilica set like a picture in the great arched entrance of the Borghese.
Going on then, Don Francesco opened a strong, locked door, that showed another door immediately within, closing the same wall. These led into another of those narrow white corridors running between the walls of the chapel behind the altar. Turning then into a third short corridor leading toward the chapel, they faced still another door, over which were painted the arms and tiara of Pope Paul V., who built the chapel.
This door unlocked, they found themselves in a little chamber directly behind the grand altar, with the miraculous picture, set in a box cased in metal, right before them. It stands a little back from the screens that cover it in the chapel, and there is space enough at either side for a person to slip in in front and see the picture face to face. Two iron hooks that barred the passage were taken down, and the Signora went in and found herself in front of this most venerable image.
The picture is painted on panel, and, though dim, is still distinct on so near a view, the rich, soft colors coming out as one gazes—a long, oval face full of serious majesty, with large eyes, and a mantle dropping over the forehead. But this mantle is now almost hid; for the head of the Mother, and of the Babe that looks up into her face, and the outline of their shoulders, are closely filled in with gold and gems. But for this nothing but a dark square would be distinguishable from the chapel. The outline is so clearly made, however, as to give a perfect idea, when looked at from below, of a crowned woman with a crowned child in her arms.
If, in the presence of the picture, one can think of jewels, these are worth looking at. They are the gems of a cardinal and of a pope—stones of immense value set in pure gold. Besides rubies and amethysts, in the centre of the Virgin’s crown is a large emerald surrounded by diamonds, and from the jewelled chain at her neck hangs a cross made entirely of large sapphires.