even
be obliging when his interests were not in question, was a perfect
newspaper, brimful of tittle-tattle, disdaining no item of gossip
whatever, even if it came from the kitchens. And thus he was quietly
marching towards the cardinalate, certain of obtaining the hat without
other exertion than that of bringing a budget of gossip to beguile the
pleasant hours of the promenade. And Heaven knew that he was always able
to garner an abundant harvest of news in that closed Vatican swarming
with prelates of every kind, in that womanless pontifical family of old
begowned bachelors, all secretly exercised by vast ambitions, covert and
revolting rivalries, and ferocious hatreds, which, it is said, are still
sometimes carried as far as the good old poison of ancient days.

All at once Narcisse stopped. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "I was certain of it.
There's the Holy Father! But we are not in luck. He won't even see us; he
is about to get into his carriage again."

As he spoke a carriage drew up at the verge of the wood, and a little
_cortege_ emerging from a narrow path, went towards it.

Pierre felt as if he had received a great blow in the heart. Motionless
beside his companion, and half hidden by a lofty vase containing a
lemon-tree, it was only from a distance that he was able to see the white
old man, looking so frail and slender in the wavy folds of his white
cassock, and walking so very slowly with short, gliding steps. The young
priest could scarcely distinguish the emaciated face of old diaphanous
ivory, emphasised by a large nose which jutted out above thin lips.
However, the Pontiff's black eyes were glittering with an inquisitive
smile, while his right ear was inclined towards Monsignor Gamba del
Zoppo, who was doubtless finishing some story at once rich and short,
flowery and dignified. And on the left walked a Noble Guard; and two
other prelates followed.

It was but a familiar apparition; Leo XIII was already climbing into the
closed carriage. And Pierre, in the midst of that large, odoriferous,
burning garden, again experienced the singular emotion which had come
upon him in the Gallery of the Candelabra while he was picturing the Pope
on his way between the Apollos and Venuses radiant in their triumphant
nudity. There, however, it was only pagan art which had celebrated the
eternity of life, the superb, almighty powers of Nature. But here he had
beheld the Pontiff steeped in Nature itself, in Nature clad in the mo