The City and the World | Page 3

toward the bench where
Father Denfili sat. Ramoni's secretary, a thin, serious-visaged priest of
about the same age as his Superior, with bald head and timid, shrinking
eyes, took with the greatest deference the cloak and hat Father Ramoni
handed to him. Then he fell back of the old General. The prelate
answered Ramoni. "But you are right, of course," he admitted. "It is
best that you return. The Church needs you there now. But later
on--_chi lo sa_? You are to preach Sunday afternoon at San Carlo? I
shall be there to hear you. So will all Rome, I suppose. Ah, you do well
here! '_Filius urbis et orbis_--son of the city and the world.' It's a great
title, Ramoni!"
They had come in front of the bench where Father Denfili told his
beads. The prelate turned to the old General of San Ambrogio with
deference. "Is it not so, Father?" he asked. But Father Denfili raised his
sightless eyes as if he sought to focus them upon the group before him.
Father Ramoni, laughingly dissenting, suddenly felt his joy congealing
into a cold fear that bound his heart. He turned away angrily, then
recovered himself in time. Father Denfili was no longer on the bench
beside the pond. He was groping his way back to the chapel.
It was a month before the Consistory met to nominate the new
hierarchy for Marqua. It had been expected that the first meeting would
end in decisive action and that, immediately afterward, the great
missionary of the Community of San Ambrogio would return with

increased authority and dignity to his charge. But something--one of
those mysterious "somethings" peculiar to Rome--had happened, and
the nominations were postponed.
In the month that Father Ramoni remained in Rome he had tasted the
fruits of his old popular success. On his first Sunday at home he
preached in San Carlo as well as ever--better than ever. And the awed
crowd he looked down on at the end of his sermon took away from the
church the tidings of his greater power. From that time nearly every
moment was taken by the demands of people of position and authority,
who wished to make the most of him before he went back to Marqua.
He scarcely saw his brethren at all, except after his Mass, when he went
to the refectory for his morning coffee. He had no time to loiter in the
garden, and the story of the conversion of the people of Marqua was
left to the quiet Fr. Pietro, who told the splendid tales of his Superior's
great work, till Father Tomasso and Brother Luigi prayed to be given
the opportunity to be Ramoni's servants in the far-away land of the
western world. But, if Ramoni was but seldom in the cloister, he did
not avoid Father Denfili. The old blind priest seemed to meet him
everywhere, in the afternoons on the Pincio, in the churches where he
preached, in the subdued crowds at ecclesiastical assemblies. Once
Ramoni caught a glimpse of his face lifted toward him during a
conference; and a remembrance of that old look in the cloister garden
gave him the sensation of belief that the old General could see, even
though Ramoni himself, was the only one whom he saw.
On the day the letter from the Vatican came, Father Ramoni, detained
in the cloister by the expected visit of a prelate who had expressed his
desire to meet the missionary of Marqua, passed Father Denfili on his
way to the reception-room. While Father Ramoni, summoning his
secretary to bring some photographs for better explanation of the South
American missions, went on his way, the blind man groped along the
wall till he reached the General's office. He had come to the door when
he felt that undercurrent of anxiety which showed itself on the white
faces of the General and his assistant, who stood gazing mutely at the
letter the former held. He heard the General call Father Tomasso. "Take
this to Father Pietro, my son," he said. Then he listened to the younger

priest's retreating footsteps.
Father Tomasso, frightened by the unwonted strangeness of the
General's tone, carried the atmosphere of tense and troubled excitement
with him when he entered the room the prelate was just leaving. Father
Pietro glanced up at him from the table where he was returning to their
case the photographs of Marqua. Tomasso laid the letter before him and
left the room just as Father Ramoni, bidding his visitor a gay good-bye,
turned back.
[Illustration: "I can't take it," he was sobbing, "it's a mistake, a terrible
mistake."]
Father Pietro was taking the letter from its large square envelope. He
read it with puzzled wonder rising to his eyes. Before he came to its
end