Hadrian the Seventh · Chapter 19 (1/2)

XIX

The Italian Socialists having been won for Italy, and the German Socialists by the German Emperor, the British Socialists began to wonder where they themselves came in. The predilection for forming societies which is to be met-with among all the degenerate and hysterical, may assume different forms. Criminals unite in bands, as Lombroso expressly establishes. Hence the British Socialists (in their quandary) held fatuous meetings hoping to generate a policy in an atmosphere of hot envious man. They really did want to know their exact position: for, in some indefinable way, they were beginning to feel that they were by no means as necessary to the universe as they had imagined themselves to be. It seemed as though this planet (for one) were moving quite easily without them, and (what was more annoying) on a path which was quite strange to them, a comfortable path and a desirable. They felt that they were being left out in the cold; and, as their nature was, they looked about for some safe person on whom to void their spleen. They began with the Roman Pontiff. That an archaic potentate of His calibre, should prove to be fresh and actual and vigorous, struck them as something of a nuisance. They had deemed Him hardly worth consideration, a decayed relic of antiquity, useful perhaps as a monument of the bad old days when the world was drowned in damnable idolatry: but nothing more. That any man whose reputation so publicly had been besmirched as His had been, should dare to hold up his head, to live and move and have his being, to dispose of millions of money and of the minds of nations, struck them as simply atrocious. He had refused the honour of their alliance, had scorned their overtures with contemptuous silence. They would return Him scorn for scorn: they would show Him what He had lost. If He flattered Himself that His so called “Epistles” to this that and the other would have any influence, the sooner He was undeceived the better. The Liblab Fellowship soon would let “an unhappy old drawler of platitudinous flapdoodle like Hadrian” know His place, quoth the blameless Comrade Bob Matchwood. All the same, amid all the rhapsodic rhodomontade of sound and fury signifying nothing, there remained among the fellowshippers just enough intellect to perceive one thing. Comrade Frank Conollan put on his pince-nez; and, with a spasm of jerks and twitches, was delivered of the opinion that the Liblab Fellowship could not hope to recover anything like a respectable position in the popular estimation as long as it remained where it was. He said that to blink the fact, that Liblabbery had taken a false step in approaching the Pope of Rome, was not a bit of good. Liblabbery had courted a snub; and had been smitten with the snubbiest of snubs. If he might use a metaphorical expression, he would say that Liblabbery had been enticed into a bog and made to look unspeakably silly. If he might use a poetical expression from Shakespeare, he would say “like unback’d colts they pricked their ears, advanced their eyelids, lifted up their noses, and calf-like follow’d through tooth’d briers, pricking goss, and thorns, which enter’d their frail skins, into the filthy mantled pool, where, dancing up to the chins, the foul lake o’er-stunk their feet.”

(It began to dawn upon the Liblabs that the Comrade was doing the very thing desired. He was leading up to the customary denunciation of some traitor. He was about to provide them with the name of the usual scapegoat. They prolonged pleased ears in his direction.)

He would go further. He would say, still using the expressions of the immortal bard of Avon, “Your fairy, which you say is a harmless fairy, has done little better than played the Jack with us.”

(This was something like! The meeting’s ears positively flapped.)

And then, being unable to keep-on his pince-nez any longer by reason of a steamed nose, he brought his climax to an abrupt term by demanding the instant and public expulsion of Comrade Jerry Sant. That was voted nem. con. The Liblab Fellowship shook-off the dust of its dirty feet at the traitor; and Comrade Mat Matchwood said some very slighting things about him in the Salpinx. No one is so facile and energetic about believing evil as a Pessimist, that is to say a Socialist; and, when one traitor is detected, what could be more natural than for others to be suspected. It happened so. The mutual jealousy, the flaring incompetency, the sordid selfishness, which always infected the socialist demagogues, and (of course) the essentially sandy foundation upon which the socialist system was based, led to further and more fatal dissensions. Suspicion mated with Baffled Purpose. Recrimination was the offspring of the match. The fellowshippers, who had connived at the scheme of Jerry Sant, found themselves accused as his accomplices, and denounced and expelled in turn. From dissension it was no more than one step to disunion. Each demagogue, fearful lest he should have to take up an honest trade for a livelihood, devoted persuasive loquacity to the attracting of personal supporters. Burnson battened on Battersea. West Ham went a-whoring after strange Bills. Glasgow got into the galley of Kerardy. And Devana succumbed to a split-thumb-nailed and anarchistic plumber. Schisms within schisms insued. Dens and caves received the remnants of the Liblab Fellowship. Mutual damnation was the order of the day. The Socialists were almost Christian. The ranks were thinned by internecine war. Then came desertions. Socialism didn’t pay; and socialists openly asked conservative agents for tory gold. When it was refused, they swore (after their kind). Labor (without the u) looked about for the patronage of Capital. And British Socialism was in a fair way to perish of its own radical fatuity, and instability.

Hadrian watched the process of disintegration from His tower in Rome, watched the natural absorption of the more respectable socialists by the more respectable community; and He was glad. Very soon now the silly obscene heresy would die and disappear, with the obsolete delusions of Gymnosophists, Anabaptists, Picards, Adamites and Turlupins. Hadrian was glad. Then came the Times, announcing that Australia, Canada, and South Africa had armed all healthy males between the ages of 17 and 50; and that England was mobilizing the sea-and-land-forces of her Empire. Now the whole world was in battle array. He took out His pyx again, and prayed the prayer of the Danaides, “O King of kings, Most Blessed of the blessed, Most Perfect Mighty One of the perfect, be persuaded and let this come to pass⁠—avert from Thy race the insolence of men who (for a reason) hate it; and plunge the black-benched pest into the dark abyss.” It was a pagan enough prayer for a Pope to utter. It was a fierce enough sentiment for an altruist to express. It was an entirely comprehensible suggestion of a misanthrope and misogynist, tired by, impatient of, armed against, the tiresome divarication of little silly people. The thing which troubled Him most was the irreconcilability of the King of Italy. He had tried hard to give Victor Emanuel to understand that, not rebuff but, welcome waited for him. He knew the benefits which cooperation of Pope and King would bring. Yet the expression of the Persian fatalist in Herodotus⁠—ἐχθιστη ὀδυνη πολλα φρονεοντα μηδενοϛ κρατεειν⁠—the bitterest of all griefs, to see clearly and yet to be unable to do anything, might have stood as the motto of His whole mind, as often before in His life, so most emphatically now. He recalled the Cardinal of Caerleon.

The blameless Sant and his companion were in a pretty pickle. Expulsion from the Liblab Fellowship included, not only the withdrawal of funds but also, a threat of prosecution on a charge of obtaining money on false pretences. The last they could afford to laugh at. No English court of law could or would convict upon the evidence producible. The first was tiresome: but of course they had a little put by. And with regard to the future? Mrs. Crowe now was quite certain that Jerry had made a mess of things. She began to think with longing of her lodging-house. What was the good of staying on in Rome? Yes, and who was going to pay her expenses, she would like to know? She impatiently put that point before her paymaster. He did-on a forensic air; and asked for time to advise himself of the matter. She demanded how long he would require. He remarked on the feminine propensity for kicking a man who has been knocked down; and ramped and raved till he thoroughly frightened her. Your Pict is a truly awesome figure when he is red with damp rage. She shrank into a corner whimpering, for she thought he was going to strike her. Instead of that he cooled to sudden wheedling; and anon he cuddled her. She permitted. It was better than nothing; and she felt as though she really needed something of the sort. How could she so misunderstand him? Of course he was not going to desert her. They both were in the same boat; and must sink or swim together. For his part, he intended to swim. She might have known that he was not the man to give up when matters had proceeded so far. But, she urged, what could they do? Do? They could do a fair lot of things. To begin with, they could go and wait on a lot of they old cardinals and mak’ theirsels a nuisance. They went to Ragna, and told him very pretty stories. Their statements were as a treat of almonds to him; but he gave no sign of that. He was suave, polite: said that he would see what could be done; and bowed them away. They went to Whitehead and got no satisfaction. Caerleon thought that they had better let matters rest. Carvale denied himself to them. Sterling listened to them with judicial gravity and gave them no response. Semphill blazed at them; and dismissed them shattered as to their nerves. They returned to the Hotel Nike to wait for Ragna.

The cardinals discussed them with the Pope. The Secretary of State was insinuatory. He spoke of the terrible scandal; and let it be understood that, in his opinion, payments should be made to stop it. He hinted at the impossibility of defending the indefensible. Better to use that million, the balance of the sale of the Vatican treasure. That million had paid the expenses of the sale and of the restoration of the sacristy; and had endowed St. George’s College of historical researchers under the presidency of Dr. Richard Barnett: it was accounted for in della Volta’s balance-sheet, Hadrian put in. Carvale added that payment never stopped scandal. Caerleon earnestly hoped that nothing would be done: it would rake up the past and involve so many people. Semphill yearned for the good old days, faggots, tongue-tearing, hand-chopping, ear-cropping, head-cutting, eye-gouging, maiming, and stoning, and the groaning with much wailing of those impaled by the spine, and all that sort of thing out of the Eymenides. He loudly said so; and was silenced by a look from the Pontiff’s scornful anguished face. Discussion languished. Then Hadrian said “Bring them here.”

Sir Iulo pit-pit-pit-pitted across the City on a motor-bicycle, and burst into Via Due Macelli, a scarlet Hermes, with the annunciation, “You are summoned to attend our Most Holy Father in the Vatican.” Mrs. Crowe hiccuped “At last”; and bolted upstairs to put on her most fetching hat. Jerry Sant grinned spikily through a tattered moustache. The two got into a hired victoria; and followed the gentleman-of-the-secret-chamber.

Hadrian received them in the throne-room. He did not occupy the throne, but the central chair of a semicircular group of five. Ragna, Sterling, Leighton, and Caerleon used the others. The latter had a pigskin portfolio on his knee. In front of the ecclesiastics were two chairs of equal importance. The man and woman lounged there. It was quite a family gathering. But between the Church and the World, Sir John stood by a little table furnished with the pontifical phonographs.

“We have summoned you, in order that ye may speak your minds to Us,” the Supreme Pontiff said: “but ye shall know that We will not hold any communication with you except Our utterances and yours be recorded by these instruments.” His voice was very frigid: but there was neither menace nor offence in it. His quiet tone totally was at variance with the furious defiance of the matter of His words. The paradox disconcerted his hearers. Sant went magenta with wrath: remembered how much he had at stake; and was canny enough not to demur. With an attempt at an easy laugh, he said that it was a little unusual, not quite what he expected, but he didn’t want to be unpleasant to His Lordship, and so he had no objection he was sure. And he lolled in his armchair, as who should say “A’m fair easy.” Mrs. Crowe bit her upper lip: but said that she had no objection either. Hadrian waved His hand; and the pontifical gentleman sat down and set the machines in motion.

The Pope put the woman to the question: “Madam, what do you want?”

Face to face with that she failed to put her want in words. It was an acrid pungent permanent want, not-to-be-named. She bit at her upper lip again; and looked at Jerry for a lead. He proceeded “I think, Reverend Sir, that it will be more advantageous for all parties if I was to speak for Mrs. Crowe.”

“We will concede the point. Sir, what do you want?” the Pontiff said.

Then the virtuous Jerry also began to flounder. Want? Eh, but he wanted several things.

“Name them:” the Pope commanded.

“Well:⁠—reparation⁠—damages.”

“For what?” the Pope inquired.

“For ma loss of time whiles I’ve had to be here and for ma business which Ye may say’s gone ta th dogs; and for the loss of ma Liblab Fellowship.”

“To what extent have you suffered?”

“To fhat extent? Well, I’ll let Ye know. I’ve been here since last July, say eight months, say forty weeks, say three hundred days; and I take ordinarily a pound-note per day on journeys for expenses: but it’s cost me a heap more than that this trip. Ye can call it five hundred pounds for out-of-pocket expenses. Then there’s ma business which I’ve had to neglect, eight months, better say a year at one-fifty for salary, and commissions⁠—say another fifty. There’s eight hundreds. Then they’ve had the cheek to expel me as a Fellowshipper, as I suppose Ye’ve heard. Of course that’s very damaging to ma prestige, say to the extent of a couple of thousands. Fhat’s that come to? Two thousands eight hundreds⁠—may as well call it three thousands. And of course there’s fhat old Krooger named moral and intellectual damage⁠—I don’t know fhat tae pit that at, I’m sure⁠—but Ye might tot it all up together and call it twenty thousands.”

“And your companion?”

“Aweel, Ye’d better double it and we’ll both ca’ quits. Forty thousands cash!”

The Pope cast a slight look round upon his cardinals. They returned it. “You are demanding that We should pay you forty thousand pounds,” He said to the expectant Jerry.

“That’s correct.”

“Why do you demand this sum of Us?”

“Why? Why because we’ve run into all these expenses on your account. If Ye hadna have been here, neither would we have come and have had all this fuss and bother. Who’s to indemnify us for that but Yersel’, I’m asking Ye. I’ll let Ye know we’ve fair ruined oursels⁠—”

The Bald She interrupted. “If I could have a private word with Your Holiness.”

The motive did not escape Hadrian’s notice. “Daughter, your conduct and your notorious proclivities debar you from a private interview with any clergyman, except in the open confessional.”

“Then in the confessional.”