I myself
shall end by trembling, and sha'n't dare to eat anything but boiled eggs
as long as I stay in this terrible Rome of yours."

For a moment this whimsical reply enlivened both the Count and Pierre.
But it was quite true that their conversation showed Rome under a
terrible aspect, for it conjured up the Eternal City of Crime, the city
of poison and the knife, where for more than two thousand years, ever
since the raising of the first bit of wall, the lust of power, the
frantic hunger for possession and enjoyment, had armed men's hands,
ensanguined the pavements, and cast victims into the river and the
ground. Assassinations and poisonings under the emperors, poisonings and
assassinations under the popes, ever did the same torrent of abominations
strew that tragic soil with death amidst the sovereign glory of the sun.

"All the same," said the Count, "those who take precautions are perhaps
not ill advised. It is said that more than one cardinal shudders and
mistrusts people. One whom I know will never eat anything that has not
been bought and prepared by his own cook. And as for the Pope, if he is
anxious--"

Pierre again raised a cry of stupefaction. "What, the Pope himself! The
Pope afraid of being poisoned!"

"Well, my dear Abbe, people commonly assert it. There are certainly days
when he considers himself more menaced than anybody else. And are you not
aware of the old Roman view that a pope ought never to live till too
great an age, and that when he is so obstinate as not to die at the right
time he ought to be assisted? As soon as a pope begins to fall into
second childhood, and by reason of his senility becomes a source of
embarrassment, and possibly even danger, to the Church, his right place
is heaven. Moreover, matters are managed in a discreet manner; a slight
cold becomes a decent pretext to prevent him from tarrying any longer on
the throne of St. Peter."

Prada then gave some curious details. One prelate, it was said, wishing
to dispel his Holiness's fears, had devised an elaborate precautionary
system which, among other things, was to comprise a little padlocked
vehicle, in which the food destined for the frugal pontifical table was
to be securely placed before leaving the kitchen, so that it might not be
tampered with on its way to the Pope's apartments. However, this project
had not yet been carried into effect.

"After all," the Count concluded with a laugh, "every pope has to die
some day