The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 14, 1906, Page 7

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL 1 An Audien ence, are the sedu Venice or the romantic gl uxurious n He prefers Paris or isen’t some one sald, “See Na- its sn ™ As en veler I know of no city you formulate an ex- Rome to seek rlem or Brook- not resist the especially was a I Mogglo” rrased the mot- f by a moral earth- I - they still speak of inzio; not so in Rome. o is now in Milan, working nchetti over their new to be produced next March, called The Daughter of Jorio.” It is his successful drama of that name set to music Therefore I listened to his new and bloody tragedy at the Costanz! with more passing attention. Though inter- 1 at robust and gifted young , I did not care for the en just now. * was the aft- entertainment arms held me in my uncom- until the final curtain drop. probably see it first, with boots of Richard Strauss’ tragedy demands acting of and a gorgeous setting. ateurs on bare boards it is fortable s New York w the geven leag: music, for th s high ed by ord ¥ r r Wilde, who is luxurious or n n his art. It is a skiliful a t t ustave Flaubert's *“‘Herodlas,” morbid as it is in i nt of blood and lust (t no real life o the ard), it lacks the genuine ide vhat ‘Wilde or D’Annunzio to do with Rome, with the Pope? sual manner of approaching the y Father is to go around to the Ameri- can embassy and harry the good-tempered o a promise of a ticket, that 2 are not acquainted in clerical . I was not long in Rome before I covered that both Mgr. Kennedy and M. v du Val were at Frascat! en- hard-earned vacation. 8o I dis- ghost of one idea and pursued agan worship at the Museo Vaticano. n the heavy hoofs of three hundred ims invaded the peace of the qulet el Fischer, up in the Via Sallus Tiana. They had come from Cologne and the vi- y of the upper Rhine, bearing Peter’s ce, wearing queer elothes and good- T red smiles. They tramped the streets and churches of Rome, did these common- place, plous folk. They burrowed in the catacombs and they ate their meals, men and women alike, with such a hearty gnashing of teeth, ch a rude appetite, that o fed their vitality, their faith, ving accom- Their schedule, evidently prepared with great forethought and one that went ab- solutely to pleces when put to the test of practical operation, was wrangled over at each meal, where the Teutonic clans fore- gathered in full force. The third day I heard of a projected audience at the Vati- can. These people had come to Rome to see the Pope. Big boned and giant like Mgr. Pick visited the hotel dally, and once after I saw him in conference with Signor Fischer I asked him if it were possible— “Of course,” responded the wily Fischer, “anything is possible in Rome.” Wear evening dress? Nonsense! That was in the more exacting days of Leo XIIL. The present Pope is a democrat. He hates vain show. Perhaps he has absorbed some of the Anglo-Saxon antipathy to seeing evening dress on a male during daylight. But the ladies wear velfls. All the morn- ing of October 5 the hotel was full of eager Itallans selling vells to the German ladles. Carriages blocked the streets and al- most stretched four square around the Palazzo Margherita, There was nolse. There were explosive sounds when bar- gains were driven. Then, after the ven- dors of saints’ pictures, crosses, rosary beads—ghiefly gentlemen of Oriental per- \ suasion, comicai s It may seem—We drove off in high feather nearly four hun- dred strong. I had secured from Mgr. Pick, through the offices of my amiable host, & parti-hued badge with a cross and the motto, “Coeln—Rom., 1905,” which interpreted, meant Cologne—Rome. I feit like singing *“Nach Rom,” after the fashion of the Wagnerians in act II of ““Tannhauser,” but contented myself with abusing my coachman for his slow driv- ing. It was all as exciting as a first night at the opera. The rendezvous was the Campo Santo dei Tedeschi whick with its adjoining church of Santa Maria della Pleta, was donated to the Germans by Plus VI as a burying ground. There I met my com- panions of the dining-room, ahd after a stern-looking German, priest with the bearing of an officer, interrogated me I ‘was permitted to join the pilgrims. ‘POPE PIUS X ‘ Afcer above the Qust and buried bones of illustrious and forgotten Du Germans we went into the church and were cooled by an address in German of a worthy cleric whose name I cannot re- he told us that we call. 1 remember were 0 meet the Vicar of man like ourselves. He A #0 it appeared to me, the humanity of the great prelate beforé whom we were bid- den that gloomy autumnal afternoon. And then, after intoning & Te Deum, we filed out in pairs, first the women, then the men, along the naked stones untll we reached the end of the Via delle Fonda- menta. The wore their every- day clothes, One even saw the short cloak and tho green jagerhut. We left our tm- brellas at a gardrobe; its business that for the more noble and spacious Sala cale. ‘Three o'cloak was the hour set for the audience, but his Holiness was closeted with & French ecolesiastical eminence and there was & delay of nearly an hour. We spent it In staring at the gacred and pro- fane frescoes of Damele da Volterra, Va- sar], Balviatl and Zuccuri staring at each other. ‘The guilty feelings which had as- sailed me as I passed the watchful gaze of the Bwiss guards began to wear off. Sala Regla bore an unfamiliar aspeet, though I had been haunting it and the adjacent Sistine Chapel dally for the previous month. An aura, coming I knew not whence, surrounded us. The awkward pligrims, with their daily man- ners, almost faded away, and when at day was a thriving one. . We mounted innumerable stalrcases. We entered the last a murmur went up: “The Holy Sala Regla, our had hoped Father! the Holy Father! He ap- . roaches!” ‘a vast sigh of relief Was ex- ed. The tension had become un- pleasant. We were ranged on either side, the ‘women to the right, the men to the left of the throne, which was an ordinary looking tribune. It must be confessed that later the fair sex was vigorously elbowed to the rear. In America the women would have been well to the front, but the dear old fatherland imdulges in no such new fangled ideas of sex equality. So the polits male pligrims by superior strength usurped all the good places. “His Holiness comes!” was an- nounced, and this time it was not & false alarm. From a gallery facing the Sistine Chapel entered the inevitable Swiss Guards; followed the officers of the Papal household, grave and rever- end signiors; a knot of ecclesiastics, all wearing purple; Monsignor Pick, the Papal prothonotary and a man of might in business affairs; then a few strag- glers—anonymous persons, stout, bald, officious—and, finally, Pope Pius X He was attired In pure white, even to the sash that compassed his plump little figure. A cross depended from his' neck. He immediately and In the most matter of fact fashion held out his hand to be kissed. I noted the white- ness of the nervous hand tendered me, bearing the ring of Peter, square - emerald surrounded by dia monds. Though 70 the Pope looks years younger. He is slightly under medium height. His hair is white, his complexion dark red veined, and not very healthy. He seems to need fresh air and’ exercise; the great gardens of the Vatican are no compensation for this man of sorrows, homesick for the sultry lagoons and stretches of gleam- ing waters In his old dlocess of Venice. If the human in him could call out it would voice, “Venice,” not the Vatican. The flesh of his face is what the paint- ers call “ecclesiastical flesh,” large In grain. His nose broad, unaristocratic; his brows strong and harmonious. His eyes may be brown, but they seemed black and brilllant and plercing. He moved with silent alertness. An active, well preserved man, though he has achieved the biblical thres score and ten last June. I noted, too, with satls- faction, the shapely ears, artistic ears, musical ears, their lobes freely de- tached. A certain resemblance to Plus IX there is, but Pius X is not a man of mediocre intelligence. He is not so amiable as was that good tempered Pope, who was nicknamed by his Inti- mate friend, the Abbe Lisst, “Pla Nina,™ because of his musical proclivities. Al- together, I found another than the Pope I had expected. This, then, was that exile—an exile, yet in his native land; prisoner in sight of the city of which he is the spiritual ruler, a prince over all principalities and companions, yet +withal a feeble old man, whose life might be imperiled If he ventured into the streets of Rome. The Pope had now finished his circle of pilgrims and stood at the other end of the Sala. With him stood his chamberiains and ecclesiastics. Suddenly a volce from the baleony, which I saw for the first time, made us coma nearer. I was thun- derstruck! This was back to the prose of life with a vengeance! We obeyed instruc- tions. A narrow aisle was made, with the il V) 75 vy 7/ Pope in the middle perspective. Then the voice, which I discovered by this time is- sued from the mouth of a bearded person behind a huge, glittering camera, cried out in peremptory and true photographer style: ‘One, two, three. Thank your Holle ness. And so we were photographed. In the Vatican and photographed! Old Rome bas her surprises for the patronizing vis- itors from the New World. It was too businesslike for me, and I would have gone away, but I couldn’t, as the aud ence had only begun. The Pope went to his throne and received the heads of the pligrims. A certain presumptuous Ameri~ can teid him that the church musical rev- olution was not much appreciated In America. He also asked, rash person that he was, why an example wa not set as St. Peter’s itself, where the previous Sun- day he had heard, and to his horror, & florid mass by Milozzi, as florid and oper- atic as any he had been forced to endure in New York before the new order of things. A discreet poke in the ribs en- lightened him to the fact that at a gene eral audience such questions are not in good taste. ‘The Pope spoke & few words In & ringing barytone voice. He sald *‘hat he loved Germany, loved its Emperor; that every morning his second prayer ‘was for Germany—his first, was it for the hundredth wandering sheep of the flock, France? That he did not explain. He blessed us, and his singing voice proved singularly rich, resonaat and pure in intonagion for an old man, De- cidedly Piux X is musical. The pilgrims thundered the Te Deum a second time ‘with such plous fervor that the vener- able walls of the Sala Regla shook with their lung vibrations. Then the papal suite followed the sacred figure out of the chamber and the buzzing began. The women wanted to know, and Indig- Dant were their inflections, why a cer- tain lady, attired in scarlet, hat and all, ‘was permitted in the sacred precincts, The men hurried, jostling each other, for thefr precious umbrellas. The um- brella in Germany is the symbol of the medieval sword. We broke ranks and tumbled Into the now sunny daylight, many going on the wings of thiist to the Plazza Santl Apostoli, which, not- ‘withstanding its venerable namle, has amber medicine for parched German sullets. Plus X is a democratic man. He may by the faithful at any time. He has organ: a number of athletio clubg for young Romans, taking a keena interest In their doings. He !s an im- pulsive man and has many énemfes in his own household. He has expressed his intention of ridding Rome and per- haps Italy of their superfluous priests and names those unattached ones who make life ¢ burden by thelr impor- tunings and beggaries In Rome. Ha has turned his eye lovingly toward America, and often his back on several of his cardinals. It is open gossip In Rome that he is not beloved by the College of Cardinals, particularly since the dean of the college, Cardinal Oreg- lla, disciplined Cardinal Ferrata. This Pope means to be master. Has he not said “There are too many cardinals and too few good bishops?™ He Intends stemming—a terridle task—the rising flood of bad taste in Italian churches, the gimeracks, gewgaws and mechan- ical art—all In such shocking bdad taste. He is very charitable. Probably because of this, because of such sums as $100,000 sent to the earthquake vic- tims In Calabria. St. Peter's musical service is 3o mediocre. His personal energy was expressed while I was in Rome by his very spirited rebuke to some members of the athletiac clubs at an audience in the Vatican. ‘There was some disorder while the Pon- tff spoke. He fixed a noisy group with an angry glance: “Those who do net wish to hear me—well, there is the open door!™ Another incident, and one I neglected to relate in its proper place: As Plus proceeded along the lne of kneeling figures during the German audience he encountered a little, jolly looking priest, evidently known to him. A smile, be- nign, witty. delleately humorous, ap~ peared on his lips. For a moment he seemed more Celt than Latin. There was no hunt of the sardonic riotus which is sald to have crossed the faces of Roman augurs. It was merely a friendly recog- nition tempered by humility, as If he meant to ask: “Why do you need my Dlessing, friend?" And it was the most human smile that I could imagine worn by & Pope. It tald me more of his char- acter than even did his meek and re- signed pose when the official photogra~ pher of the Vatican called out his sonor~ Qs “Una, Duo tre! <4