iff'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 most
lovely, most voluptuous, most passionate guise. Ah! that Pope, that old
man strolling with his Divinity of grief, humility, and renunciation
along the paths of those gardens of love, in the languid evenings of the
hot summer days, beneath the caressing scents of pine and eucalyptus,
ripe oranges, and tall, acrid box-shrubs! The whole atmosphere around him
proclaimed the powers of the great god Pan. How pleasant was the thought
of living there, amidst that magnificence of heaven and of earth, of
loving the beauty of woman and of rejoicing in the fruitfulness of all!
And suddenly the decisive truth burst forth that from a land of such joy
and light it was only possible for a temporal religion of conquest and
political domination to rise; not the mystical, pain-fraught religion of
the North--the religion of the soul!

However, Narcisse led the young priest away, telling him other anecdotes
as they went--anecdotes of the occasional _bonhomie_ of Leo XIII, who
would stop to chat with the gardeners, and question them about the health
of the trees and the sale of the oranges. And he also mentioned the
Pope's former passion for a pair of gazelles, sent him from Africa, two
graceful creatures which he had been fond of caressing, and at whose
death he had shed tears. But Pierre no longer listened. When they found
themselves on the Piazza of St. Peter's, he turned round and gazed at the
Vatican once more.

His eyes had fallen on the gate of bronze, and he remembered having
wondered that morning what there might be behind these metal panels
ornamented with big nails. And he did not yet