Page:The Yellow Book - 13.djvu/164

hand is pressed. The window is not all in light; outside, against the pageant of the sky rises a mighty bulk of darkness. It is the dome of St. Peter's. Its shadow lies across the Cardinal's dwelling and across the world of his thought. And there—close to the base of that dome, there in the heart of the Vatican, the Pope is dying. The Cardinal, new come from his bedside, sits waiting: soon the last mystic sacraments must be bestowed, soon the last throb of life must pass. He waits. He does not see the sunset; he sees instead the kneeling forms round the death-bed; he sees the shrouded halls and solemn gatherings of the Conclave He sees—beyond— a mystery of ever widening domination, at the centre of which is enthroned—not the old man who is dying yonder. Whose will it be the solitary sovereign figure, soon to stand there where the dome rises and the great shadow lies? The Cardinal's face has grown sharp and sunken in these hours; it is of a pallor like the ivory crucifix behind him. Round his lips lingers the unchanging inward smile of priesthood. His eyes beneath their drooping lids are intent—patient—menacing. His right hand is a little lifted with an unconscious movement of benediction: with such a gesture it is that the Pope—from above the portico of the Lateran—blesses the kneeling multitudes.