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The Eternal City, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 7. The Pope - Chapter 4 |
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_ PART SEVEN. THE POPE CHAPTER IV When the Pope walked in his garden that afternoon as usual, the old Capuchin was with him. From the door of the Vatican they drove in the Pope's landau with two of the Noble Guard riding beside the carriage, and one of the chamberlains walking behind it, through lanes enshrouded in laurel and ilex, until they reached the summer-house on the top of the hill. There the old men stepped down, the Pope in his white cassock, white overcoat and red hat, the Capuchin in his brown habit, skull-cap and sandals. The Pope's cat, a creature of reddish coat, which followed him into the garden as a dog follows his master, leapt out of the carriage after them. The Pope was more than usually grave and silent. Once or twice the Capuchin said, "And how did you find my young penitent this morning?" "_Bene, bene!_" the Pope replied. But at length the Pope, scraping the gravel at his feet with the ferrule of his walking-stick, began to speak on his own initiative. "Father!" "Your Holiness?" "The inscrutable decree of God which made me your Pontiff has not altered our relations to each other as men?" The Capuchin took snuff and answered, "Your Holiness is always so good as to say so." "You are my master now just as you were thirty years ago, and there is something I wish to ask of you." "What is it, your Holiness?" "You have been a confessor many years, Father?" "Forty years, your Holiness." "In that time you have had many difficult cases?" "Very many." "Father, has it ever happened that a penitent, has revealed to you a conspiracy to commit a crime?" "More than once it has happened." "And what have you done?" "Persuaded him to reveal it to the civil authorities, or else tell it to me outside the confessional." "Has the penitent ever refused to do so?" "Never." "But if ... if the case were such as made it difficult for the penitent to reveal the conspiracy to the civil authorities, having regard to the penalties the revelation would bring with it ... if by reason of ties of blood and affection such revelation were humanly impossible, and it would even be cruel to ask for it, what would you do then?" "Nothing, your Holiness." "Not even if the crime to be committed were a serious one, and it touched you very nearly?" The Capuchin shook out his coloured print handkerchief and said, "That could make no difference, your Holiness." "But suppose you heard in confession that your brother is to be assassinated, what is your duty?" "My duty to the penitent who reveals his soul to me is to preserve his secret." "And what is your duty to God?" The handkerchief dropped from the Capuchin's hand. The Pope paused, scraped the gravel with the ferrule of his stick, and said: "Father, I am in the position of the confessor who has guilty knowledge of a conspiracy against the life of his enemy." The Capuchin pushed his handkerchief into his sleeve and dropped back into his seat. After a moment the Pope told the story of what Roma had said of Rossi's plans abroad. "A conspiracy," he said, "plainly a conspiracy." "And what do you understand the conspiracy to be?" "Who can say? Perhaps a recurrence to the custom of the Middle Ages, when citizens who had been banished by their opponents used to apply themselves in exile to attempt the reconquest of their country by stirring up the factions at home." "You think that is Rossi's object?" "I do." The Capuchin shifted uneasily the skull-cap on his crown and said: "Holy Father, I trust your Holiness will leave the matter alone." "Why so?" "In reading history I do not find that such enterprises have usually been successful. I see, rather, how commonly they have failed. And if it was so in the Middle Ages when the arts of war were primitive, how much less likely are the conspiracies of secret societies, the partial and superficial risings of refugees, to be serious now in the days of standing armies." "True. But is that a good reason for doing nothing in this instance?" "But, Holy Father, think. You cannot disclose the secrets this poor lady has revealed to you. Her confession was only a confidence, but your Holiness knows well that there is such a thing as a natural secret which it would be a great fault to reveal. Facts which of their own nature are confidential belong to this order. They are assimilated to the confessional, and as such they should be respected." "Indeed they should." "Then it is not possible for your Holiness to reveal what you heard this morning without bringing trouble to the penitent and wronging her in relation to her husband." "God forbid that I should do so, whatever happens. But is a priest forbidden to speak of a sin heard in confession if he can do so in such a way that the identity of the penitent cannot be discovered?" "Your Holiness intends to do that?" "Why not?" "The Holy Father knows best. For my own part, your Holiness, I think it a danger to tamper with the secrets of a soul, whatever the good end in view or the evil to be prevented." The Capuchin looked round to where the horses were pawing the path and the Guards stood by the carriage. "Thirty-five years ago we had a terrible lesson in such dangers, your Holiness." The Pope dropped his head and continued to scrape the gravel. "Your Holiness remembers the poor young woman who told her confessor she was about to marry a rich young man. The confessor thought it his duty to tell the young man's father in general terms that such a marriage was to be contracted. What was the result? The marriage took place in secret and ended in grief and death." The Pope rose uneasily. "We will not speak of that. It was a case of a father's pride and perverted ambition. This is a different case altogether. A man who is a prey to diabolical illusions, an enemy of the Church and of social order, is hatching a plot which can only end in mischief and bloodshed. The Holy Father knows it. Shall he keep this guilty knowledge locked in his own bosom? God forbid!" "Then you intend to warn the civil authorities?" "I must. It is my duty. How could I lay my head on my pillow and not do it? But I will do it discreetly. I will commit no one, and this poor lady shall remain unknown." The venerable old men, each leaning on his stick, walked down a path lined by clipped yews, shaded by cypresses, and almost overgrown with crocus, anemone, and violet. Suddenly from the bushes there came a flutter of wings, followed by the scream of a bird, and in a moment the Pope's cat had leapt on to a marble which stood in the midst of the jungle. It was an ancient sarcophagus, placed there as a fountain, but the spring that had fed it was dry, and in its moss-grown mouth a bird had made its nest. The cat was about to pounce down on the eggs when the Pope laid hold of it. "Ah, Meesh, Meesh," he said, "what an anarchist you are, to be sure!... Monsignor!" "Yes, your Holiness," said the chamberlain, coming up behind. "Take this _gatto rosso_ back to the carriage, and keep him in _domicilio coatto_ until we come." The Monsignor laughed and carried off the cat, and the Pope put his mittened hand gently on the little speckled eggs. "Poor things! they're warm. Listen! That's the mother bird screaming in the tree. Hark! She's watching us, and waiting for us to go. How snugly she thought she kept her secret." The Capuchin drew a long breath. "Yes, nature has the same cry for fear in all her offspring." "True," said the Pope. "It makes me think of that poor girl this morning." The Pope walked back to the carriage without saying a word. As he returned to the Vatican, the Angelus was ringing from all the church bells of Rome, the city was bathed in crimson light, the sun was sinking behind Monte Mario, and the stone pines on the crest of the hill, standing out against the reddening sky, were like the roofless columns of a ruined temple. _ |
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