The Dawn of All Part 15

"Do you mean from Europe?"

"I mean from the whole world. You see the East is scarcely three days away by the fast volors; so even the Chinese----"

"Do you mean that China and j.a.pan send representatives?"

"Certainly. j.a.pan is Christian of course, anyhow; and China has at least one or two Christian princes of the blood."

"By the way, what about Russia?"

"Well, what about it?"

"Is it Catholic?"

"My dear Monsignor, it's been Catholic for thirty years."

"Oh dear me! You must lend me some more histories. . . . What made it Catholic?"

"Common sense, I suppose. How they could have stood out for so long is the only thing that puzzles me."

"But the Petrine claims----"

"Why, the Petrine claims were the very point. Facts were too strong. If you look back over history you can't help seeing that the only Christian body that was ever able to resist Erastianism on the one side and endless division on the other has been the Church built on Peter. They began to see it nearly a hundred years ago in Russia and Greece. Then the Emperor of Russia was secretly reconciled in 1930; and ten or twelve years later his people followed him."

"Then there's no more dispute? What about the _Filioque_ clause?"

"Why, when Peter is accepted, the rest follows."

"Then you may say that the entire civilized world is represented in Rome to-day?"

"Certainly. You'll see the princes in the procession."

(II)

An hour later they took their places at the central window of the long sala on the third floor, looking out immediately upon the narrow street, which, opposite, fell back into a tiny square, and further up to the right, upon the enormous piazza of St. Peter's and the basilica itself behind.

It was a real Roman day--not yet at its full heat, but intensely clear and bright; and Monsignor congratulated himself on having elected to remain as a spectator. The return journey from the Lateran about noon would be something of an ordeal.

The street and the piazza presented an astonishingly brilliant appearance. Beneath, the roadway was now one sheet of greenery--box, myrtle, and bay. The houses opposite, as well as within the little square, of which every window was packed with heads, were almost completely hidden under the tapestries, the carpets, the banners. Behind the barriers on either side of the garlanded masts was one ma.s.s of heads resembling a cobbled pavement. So much for sight. For sound, the air was filled with one steady low roar of voices; for down to where the street opened far away to the left into the s.p.a.ce above the river, the same vista presented itself. The Campagna since twenty-four hours before had been emptying every living inhabitant into Rome; and there was not a town in Italy, and scarcely in Europe, whence special volors and trains had not carried the fervent to the Feast of the Apostles in Holy Rome. And, for scent, the air was sweet and fragrant with the aromatic herbs of the roadway, already bruised a little by the feet of the galloping horses of those that went up and down to guard the route or to carry messages.

It was a little hard to make out the arrangements of the vast circular piazza in front of St. Peter's. The front of the basilica was hung, in usual Roman fashion, with gigantic garlands and red cloth; and the carpet of greenery lined with troops ran straight up the centre of the s.p.a.ce, rippled over the steps, and ceased only beneath the towering portico of the church. But on either side of this, with s.p.a.ces between, stood enormous groups of men and horses, marshalled, no doubt, in order to take their places at the proper moment in the procession.

At the right, immovable and tremendous, rose up the great palace of the Vatican itself, unadorned except where a glint of some colour showed itself at the Bronze Doors; and above all, like a benediction in stone, against the vivid blue of the sky, hung the dome of the basilica.

Monsignor Masterman made a long, keen survey of all this. Then he leaned back and sighed.

"What was the first year that the Pope came out of the Vatican like this?"

"The year after the conquest of United Italy. It was Austria that----"

"I know all that. And you mean he never came out so long as the old state of affairs continued?"

"How could he? Don't you see that the one thing, humanly speaking, absolutely necessary if the world was to have confidence in the Church, was that the Pope should be really supra-national? Of course, for many years he had to be an Italian--that's obvious, since he was at the mercy of Italy, and the Romans would never have stood a foreigner; and that made it all the more essential that he should be cut clean off, in everything else, from Italian sympathies. He had to be two things simultaneously, so to speak--emphatically an Italian for the sake of Italy and indeed his own existence in Rome; and emphatically not an Italian for the sake of the rest of Christendom. And can you suggest any other way of accomplishing this paradox? I can't."

Monsignor sighed again and began to meditate.

For somewhere at the back of his mind there ran an undercurrent of thought, or as of some one talking, to the effect that the Pope's old method of remaining as a prisoner in the Vatican was a foolish and unhumble pose. (He supposed he must have read it all somewhere in history.) Surely even Catholics used to talk like that! They used to say how much more spiritual and Christian it would have been, had the Vicar of Christ acquiesced and been content to live as a simple Italian subject, neither claiming nor desiring a position such as Peter had never enjoyed. Why all this fuss, it used to be asked, about a Temporal Power on behalf of a "Kingdom that was not of this world"?

Yet, somehow, now as he looked back on it all, with his friend's comment in his mind, he began to see, not how clever or diplomatic had been the old att.i.tude, but how absolutely and obviously essential. It was possible indeed for Peter to be a subject of Nero in things pertaining to Caesar; but how could that be possible to Peter's successor when the Kingdom of Christ which he ruled on earth had become a Supra-national Society to which the nations of the earth looked for guidance?

The phrase he had just heard ran in his mind.

"An Italian for the sake of Italy and his own existence in Rome.

Not an Italian for the sake of the rest of Christendom."

It seemed simple, somehow, just like that.

He was roused by a touch on his knee, and simultaneously was aware of a new sound from the piazza.

"Look," said the old priest sharply. "They're beginning to move."

(III)

A curious seething movement had broken out in the piazza, resembling the stir of a troubled ant-hill, on either side of the broad green way down which the Pope would come; and already into the head of the street up which the priests looked figures were emerging. Simultaneously a crash of brazen music had filled the air. A movement of attention, exactly like the lift of a swell along the foot of a cliff, pa.s.sed down the crowded street to the left and lost itself round the corner towards S. Angelo.

Then they began to come, swinging over from the piazza to the street as if from a pool into a narrow channel. Troops came first--company after company--each with a band leading. First the Austrian guard in white and gold on white chargers--pa.s.sing from the flash and dazzle their uniforms threw back in the sunlight into the glow of the shadowed street. And then, by the time that the Austrians were pa.s.sing below the window, came troop after troop down from the piazza in all the uniforms of the civilized world.

At first Father Jervis murmured a name or two; he even laid his hand upon his friend's arm as the Life-guards of England came clashing by with their imperturbable faces above their silver splendour; but presently the amazing spectacle forming in the piazza, and, above all, on the steps of St. Peter's, silenced them both. Monsignor Masterman gave scarcely a glance even to the monstrous figures of the Chinese imperial guard, who went by presently in black armour and vizarded helmets, like old Oriental G.o.ds. For in the piazza itself the procession of princes was forming; and the steps of the basilica already began to burn with purple and scarlet where the Cardinals and the Papal Court were making ready for the coming of the Lord of them all.

And then, at last, he came. . . .

Monsignor Masterman had begun to stare, almost with unintelligent eyes, at the thronged street, beneath, watching the great carriages come past, each surmounted by a crown with its proper supporters, each surrounded by a small guard drawn from the troops that had ridden by just now. He identified a few here and there; and his heart gave a strange leap as the Imperial Crown of England came in sight, held up by the Lion and the Unicorn, and beneath it, within the gilded coach, the face of a boy capped and robed in scarlet. And then he looked up again, startled by a silence broken only by the footsteps of the horses and the wheels over the matted roadway, and the murmur of talking.

The piazza was now one sea of white and purple, with emblems, gold and silver and jewelled, shining here and there; the green strip was gone; for the Papal procession was begun; and then, on the instant, as he looked, there was a new group standing beneath the giant columns of the portico, and the cry of the silver trumpets told to the thousands that waited that the Vicar of Christ had come out into this city that was again the City of G.o.d.

Very slowly he came down the steps, a tiny white and gemmed figure, yet perfectly visible on the high throne on which he was borne, his hand swaying as he came, and the huge fans moving behind him like protecting deities. Down and down he came, while the trumpets cried, and the waves of colour followed him, and then vanished for a time among the crowd beneath, as he reached the level ground.

Monsignor Masterman leaned back and closed his eyes. . . .

He was disturbed by another touch on his arm; and, looking up, perceived that his friend was attracting his attention almost mechanically, and without looking at him.

"Look," murmured Father Jervis--"it's the white jennet."

Beneath, the street was now as wholly ecclesiastical as it had been military just before, except that the Papal zouaves marched in single file on either side of the procession. But within there was just one packed army, going eight abreast, of seminarians and clerics. These were just pa.s.sing as the priest looked again, and close on their heels came the Court and the Cardinals; the latter an indescribable glory of scarlet, riding four abreast in broad hats and ample cloaks. But he gave scarcely more than a glance at these; for, full in sight for at least half a minute, advancing straight towards him down the roaring street, moved a canopy held by figures he could not clearly make out, and beneath it, detached and perfectly visible, on a white horse, a white figure, its shoulders just draped in scarlet and its head shadowed by a great scarlet hat, came slowly towards him.