inued as bitterly as ever even in Rome
itself, where pope and king, who could see each other from their windows,
contended together like falcon and hawk for the little birds of the
woods. And in this for Pierre lay the reason why Catholicism was fatally
condemned; for it was of monarchical essence to such a point that the
Apostolic and Roman papacy could not renounce the temporal power under
penalty of becoming something else and disappearing. In vain did it feign
a return to the people, in vain did it seek to appear all soul; there was
no room in the midst of the world's democracies for any such total and
universal sovereignty as that which it claimed to hold from God. Pierre
ever beheld the Imperator sprouting up afresh in the Pontifex Maximus,
and it was this in particular which had killed his dream, destroyed his
book, heaped up all those ruins before which he remained distracted
without either strength or courage.

The sight of that ashen Rome, whose edifices faded away into the night,
at last brought him such a heart-pang that he came back into the room and
fell on a chair near his luggage. Never before had he experienced such
distress of spirit, it seemed like the death of his soul. After his
disaster at Lourdes he had not come to Rome in search of the candid and
complete faith of a little child, but the superior faith of an
intellectual being, rising above rites and symbols, and seeking to ensure
the greatest possible happiness of mankind based on its need of
certainty. And if this collapsed, if Catholicism could not be rejuvenated
and become the religion and moral law of the new generations, if the Pope
at Rome and with Rome could not be the Father, the arch of alliance, the
spiritual leader whom all hearkened to and obeyed, why then, in Pierre's
eyes, the last hope was wrecked, the supreme rending which must plunge
present-day society into the abyss was near at hand. That scaffolding of
Catholic socialism which had seemed to him so happily devised for the
consolidation of the old Church, now appeared to him lying on the ground;
and he judged it severely as a mere passing expedient which might perhaps
for some years prop up the ruined edifice, but which was simply based on
an intentional misunderstanding, on a skilful lie, on politics and
diplomacy. No, no, that the people should once again, as so many times
before, be duped and gained over, caressed in order that it might be
enthralled--this was repugnant to on