rancs enables him to live there like a peasant
philosopher, cultivating the somewhat extensive garden whose big walls
you see yonder."

The close to which he called attention stretched down the slope behind
the parsonage, without an aperture, like some savage place of refuge into
which not even the eye could penetrate. And all that could be seen above
the left-hand wall was a superb, gigantic fig-tree, whose big leaves
showed blackly against the clear sky. Prada had moved on again, and
continued to speak of Santobono, who evidently interested him. Fancy, a
patriot priest, a Garibaldian! Born at Nemi, in that yet savage nook
among the Alban hills, he belonged to the people and was still near to
the soil. However, he had studied, and knew sufficient history to realise
the past greatness of Rome, and dream of the re-establishment of Roman
dominion as represented by young Italy. And he had come to believe, with
passionate fervour, that only a great pope could realise his dream by
seizing upon power, and then conquering all the other nations. And what
could be easier, since the Pope commanded millions of Catholics? Did not
half Europe belong to him? France, Spain, and Austria would give way as
soon as they should see him powerful, dictating laws to the world.
Germany and Great Britain, indeed all the Protestant countries, would
also inevitably be conquered, for the papacy was the only dike that could
be opposed to error, which must some day fatally succumb in its efforts
against such a barrier. Politically, however, Santobono had declared
himself for Germany, for he considered that France needed to be crushed
before she would throw herself into the arms of the Holy Father. And thus
contradictions and fancies clashed in his foggy brain, whose burning
ideas swiftly turned to violence under the influence of primitive, racial
fierceness. Briefly, the priest was a barbarian upholder of the Gospel, a
friend of the humble and woeful, a sectarian of that school which is
capable alike of great virtues and great crimes.

"Yes," concluded Prada, "he is now devoted to Cardinal Sanguinetti
because he believes that the latter will prove the great pope of
to-morrow, who is to make Rome the one capital of the nations. At the
same time he doubtless harbours a lower personal ambition, that of
attaining to a canonry or of gaining assistance in the little worries of
life, as when he wished to extricate his brother from trouble. Here, you
know,