he reign of God over some
distant continent.

Two ladies went off and three more arrived. Donna Serafina rose, bowed,
and then reseated herself, reverting to her rigid attitude, her bust
erect, her face stern and full of despair. Cardinal Sarno was still
asleep. Then Pierre felt as if he would stifle, a kind of vertigo came on
him, and his heart beat violently. So he bowed and withdrew: and on
passing through the dining-room on his way to the little study where
Cardinal Boccanera received his visitors, he found himself in the
presence of Paparelli who was jealously guarding the door. When the
train-bearer had sniffed at the young man, he seemed to realise that he
could not refuse him admittance. Moreover, as this intruder was going
away the very next day, defeated and covered with shame, there was
nothing to be feared from him.

"You wish to see his Eminence?" said Paparelli. "Good, good. By and by,
wait." And opining that Pierre was too near the door, he pushed him back
to the other end of the room, for fear no doubt lest he should overhear
anything. "His Eminence is still engaged with his Eminence Cardinal
Sanguinetti. Wait, wait there!"

Sanguinetti indeed had made a point of kneeling for a long time in front
of the bodies in the throne-room, and had then spun out his visit to
Donna Serafina in order to mark how largely he shared the family sorrow.
And for more than ten minutes now he had been closeted with Cardinal
Boccanera, nothing but an occasional murmur of their voices being heard
through the closed door.

Pierre, however, on finding Paparelli there, was again haunted by all
that Don Vigilio had told him. He looked at the train-bearer, so fat and
short, puffed out with bad fat in his dirty cassock, his face flabby and
wrinkled, and his whole person at forty years of age suggestive of that
of a very old maid: and he felt astonished. How was it that Cardinal
Boccanera, that superb prince who carried his head so high, and who was
so supremely proud of his name, had allowed himself to be captured and
swayed by such a frightful creature reeking of baseness and abomination?
Was it not the man's very physical degradation and profound humility that
had struck him, disturbed him, and finally fascinated him, as wondrous
gifts conducing to salvation, which he himself lacked? Paparelli's person
and disposition were like blows dealt to his own handsome presence and
his own pride. He, who could not be so deformed, he who