Part 15 (2/2)
”I don't believe it.”
They looked back; they could see the dome of the great basilica s.h.i.+ning in the sun; then, to one side, a little viaduct and a tower.
”What a wonderful bird you keep in this beautiful cage!” said Caesar.
”What bird?” asked Preciozi.
”The Pope, friend Preciozi, the Pope. Not the popinjay, but the Pope in white. What a very marvellous bird! He has a feather fan like a peac.o.c.k's tail; he speaks like the c.o.c.katoo, only he differs from them in being infallible; and he is infallible, because another bird, also marvellous, which is called the Holy Ghost, tells him by night everything that takes place on earth and in heaven. What very picturesque and extravagant things!”
”For you who have no faith everything must be extravagant.”
Caesar and Preciozi went on encircling the walls and reading the various marble tablets set into them, and ascended to the Janiculum, to the terrace where Garibaldi's statue stands.
_POOR TINDARO_
”But, are you anti-Catholic, seriously?” asked Preciozi. ”But do you believe any one can be a Catholic seriously?” said Caesar. ”I can, yes; otherwise I shouldn't be a priest.”
”But are you a priest because you believe, or do you make believe that you believe because you are a priest?”
”You are a child. I suppose you hate the Jesuits, like all Liberals.”
”And I suppose you hate Masons, like all Catholics.”
”No.”
”No more do I hate Jesuits. What is worse, I read the life of Saint Ignatius Loyola at school, and he seemed to me a great man.”
”Well, I should think so!”
”And the Jesuits have some power still?”
”Yes.”
”Really?”
”Yes, man. They give the Church its direction. Oh, n.o.body fools the Society. You can see what happened to Cardinal Tindaro.”
”I don't know what did happen to him,” said Caesar, with indifference.
”No?”
”No.”
”Well, Cardinal Tindaro decided to follow the inspirations of the Society and made many Jesuits Cardinals with the object that when Pope Leo XIII died, they should elect him Pope; but the Jesuits smelled the rat, and when Leo XIII got very ill, the Council of a.s.sistants of the Society had a meeting and decided that Tindaro should not be Pope, and ordered the Austrian Court to oppose its veto. When the election came, the Jesuit Cardinals gave Tindaro a fat vote, out of grat.i.tude, but calculated not to be enough to raise him to the throne, and in case it was, the Austrian Cardinal and the Hungarian had their Empire's veto to Tindaro's election in their pocket.”
”And this Tindaro, is he intelligent?”
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