At nine o'clock at night he visited the "urn" called the "Sepulchre."
Borne amid the light of torches on his sedia with his flabelli
waving on either hand, under a white canopy upheld by prelates, he
passed through the glittering rooms of his own palace, along the dark
corridors of the Vatican and down the marble stairs, accompanied by his
guards in helmets and preceded by the papal cross covered with a violet
veil, into the great Basilica, lit only by large candles in iron stands,
and looking plain and barn-like and full of shadows in the gloom and the
smoky air. But after he had visited the Sepulchre, gorgeously
illuminated, while the cantors sang the Verbum Caro, after he had
knelt in silence and had risen, and the torches of his procession had
been put out, and he had returned to his chair to be borne into the
Sacristy, and the poor people, lifted to a height of emotion not often
reached by the human soul, had broken again into a last delirious shout
of affection, he dropped his head and wept.
At that moment the Sacristy was empty save for the custodian in black
cassock and biretta, who was warming his hands over a large bronze
scaldino; but in the Archpriest's room adjoining, with its gilt
arm-chair and stools of red plush, Father Pifferi in his ordinary brown
habit was waiting for the Pope. The bearers put down the chair, knelt
and kissed the Pope's feet in spite of his protest, backed themselves
out with deep obeisance, and left the two old men together.
"Have they arrived?" asked the Pope.
"Not yet, your Holiness," said the Capuchin.
"Father, have you any faith in presentiments?"
"Sometimes, your Holiness. When they continue and are persistent..."
"I have had a presentiment which has been with me all my life--all my
life as Pope, at all events. The blessed God who abases and lifts up has
thought fit to raise my lowliness to the most sublime dignity that
exists on earth, but I have always lived in the fear that some day I
should be torn down from it, and the Church would suffer."
"God forbid, your Holiness!"
"That was why I refused every place and every honour. You know how I
refused them, Father!"
"Yes, but God knew better, your Holiness, and He preserved you to be a
blessing and a comfort to His people."
"His holy will be done! But the shadow which has been over me will not
be lifted. Cause prayers to be said for me. Pray for me yourself,
Father."