"He must indeed be good; everybody says so."
"He is perfect. That's about the size of it. None of your locking up his
bedroom when he goes into the garden and putting the key into the pocket
of his cassock, same as in the old Pope's days. I go in whenever I like,
and he lets me take whatever I please. At Christmas some rich Americans
wanted a skull-cap to save a dying man, and I got it for the asking. Now
an old English lady wants a stocking to cure her rheumatism, and I'll
get that too. I've saved a little hair from the last cutting, and if you
hear of anybody...."
The valet's story of his perquisites was interrupted by the opening of
the door of the throne room and the entrance of a friar in a brown
habit. It was Father Pifferi.
"Don't rise, my daughter," he said, and closing the door behind the
valet, he gathered up the skirts of his habit and sat down on the
chest-seat in front of her.
"When you came to me with your confidence, my child, and I found it
difficult to advise with you for your peace of mind, I told you I wished
to take your case to a wiser head than mine. I took it to the Pope
himself. He was touched by your story, and asked to see you for
himself."
"But, Father...."
"Don't be afraid, my daughter. Pius the Tenth as a Pope may be lofty to
sternness, but as a man he is humble and simple and kind. Forget that he
is a sovereign and a pontiff, and think of him as a tender and loving
friend. Tell him everything. Hold nothing back. And if you must needs
reveal the confidences of others, remember that he is the Vicar of Him
who keeps all our secrets."
"But, Father...."
"Yes."
"He is so high, so holy, so far above the world and its temptations...."
"Don't say that, my daughter. The Holy Father is a man like other men.
Shall I tell you something of his life? The world knows it only by
hearsay and report. You shall hear the truth, and when you have heard it
you will go to him as a child goes to its father, and no longer be
afraid."
II
"Thirty-five years ago," said Father Pifferi, "the Holy Father had not
even dreamt of being Pope. He was the only child of a Roman banker,
living in a palace on the opposite side of the piazza. The old Baron had
visions, indeed, of making his son a great churchman by the power of
wealth, but these were vain and foolish, and the young man did not share
them. His own aims were simple but worldly. He desired to be a soldier,
and to compromise with his father's disappointed ambitions he asked for
a commission in the Pope's Noble Guard."