“History repeats itself:” the Pope said, and laughed.
Carvale smiled in reply. “Fancy remembering that.”
“We forget no one thing of those days,” said Hadrian: “also, the rape of Your Eminency’s streamer was effected on one of the only two days when We were permitted to accompany the others to the University. Naturally We remember that. Besides, Carvale, you were in such a blind and naked rage; and We had deemed you such a virtuous little mouse.”
“Was I?” the cardinal said. “One had to lie low, as a rule: but sometimes the old Adam—”
“We owe Our one moment of mirth in St. Andrew’s College to that old Adam.”
“I had to keep in coll. for a week though, afterwards. The boy’s father was waiting for me with a knife.”
“Yes. Italy had not got over her taste for steel.”
“Will she ever get over it, Holiness?”
“Of course She will—when She has killed you—or Us. Nothing but a tragedy will break a habit of centuries:” the Pope said, as He rang the bell at the door of the college.
The old porter Aurelio opened, gasped, dropped on his knees. Hadrian and Cardinal Carvale entered. A long corridor extended right and left. In front, on the right, a wide stone stair ascended: on the left, another stair descended a little way to a glass door leading to a shabby shrubbery. Some students were on the stairs: others were in the shrubbery: two or three lingered in the corridor. At the Pontiff’s entrance they all inquisitively turned, gasped, and flopped. It was awfully funny. They resembled violet hares on their forms, rigid, goggle-eyed, ready-to-bound. At the turn of the landing, a sturdy black-a-vised Gael fled upstairs to summon the superiors. The Apostle blessed the others with a shy smile which would be kind, and a wave of the hand which emptied space—except for an obese little spectacled sharpnosed creature like a violet sparrow who hopped about pertly obsequious. Down came flying the superiors as a bell began to ring and intonations sounded in the upper corridors. The rector was annoyed at being taken unawares: but he presented his vice-rector, a mild anemic of thirty with the face of a good young woman.
“We are come to accept your hospitality, Monsignore, without any ceremony,” said Hadrian. They passed into the refectory to the high table. Twenty-nine students followed: and arranged themselves in two lines down the sides of the centre, and in a third line across the end. The dean-of-students intoned the Grace: the rest responded. The Pope placed Himself on the rector’s right, with the vice-rector on His Own right: Carvale supported the rector on the left. Soup, boiled meat, vegetables, baked-meat, cheese, apples, appeared and disappeared. The rector conceded to Hadrian the right of signalling to the reader in the pulpit: the Pope kept him reading, because He did not want to talk platitudes, and because He did want to look at the men. He ate little. The food was abundant in quantity: indelicate in quality. They offered Him the best black wine from the college-vineyards: but He preferred a student’s little cruet of red, a coarse wine with some body and no bouquet whatever—an unsophisticate wine such as Fabrizio Colonna might have used at the end of the fifteenth century. Most of the diners assiduously and emphatically dined, with one eye on the high table, a nose in their own plate, and the other eye in their neighbour’s. Hadrian noted all their physiognomies; and began to select those with whom He would have a word. He passed the weak young thin-nosed dean at the top of the right table, the tall quiet man in black who looked already sacerdotal, the old bald amiability with an air of conventionality who might have been a parson—yes He would speak to him of the others—the blubber-lipped gorger who mopped up gravy with a crumb-wedge and gulched the sop—no: the fastidious person who ate bread and drank water and looked so hungry—yes: the florid giant with the fiery wiry mop—no: the dark man with the cruel face of a Redemptorist—no: the sallow lath who had the manners of an attaché—no. On the left, colourless mediocrities—no. Across the end, youngsters:—His Holiness distinguished a black-haired white-skinned one with wet black eyes, certainly an Erse: a crisp-brown-haired muscular hobbledehoy with shining grey eyes and a tanned skin, who would look well in a farmyard: a big bloom of boyhood yellow-haired, blue-eyed, scarlet and moist-lipped, ardent and modest. The Pope tapped on the table. The reader, to whom no one had listened, ceased; and came down to his dinner. A low murmur of conversation arose. Everybody began to think furiously of what he would do or demand if he had a chance.
“This is a great day for the college, Holy Father,” the rector said. The Pope slightly bowed. “Had we known that You intended to honour us, Holy Father, a proper reception—”
“Unnecessary,” Hadrian quietly interrupted. “We do not wish to disturb. Our children expect to see Us; and We are
