HADRIAN THE SEVENTH HADRIAN THE SEVENTH A ROMANCE BY FR. ROLFE [Illustration] LONDON CHATTO & WINDUS 1904 TO MOTHER _In Obedience to the Decree of URBAN P.M. VIII, I declare that I have no Intention of attributing any other than a purely human Authority to the Miracles, Revelations, Favours, & particular Cases, recorded in this Book; & the same as regards the Titles of Saints & Blessed applied to Servants of GOD not yet canonized: except in those Cases which have been confirmed by the Holy Catholic Apostolic Roman See, of which I declare myself to be an obedient Son; & therefore I submit myself & all which I have written to her Judgment._ _Fr. Rolfe._ _xxij Jul., 1904._ HADRIAN THE SEVENTH PROOIMION In mind he was tired, worn out, by years of hope deferred, of loneliness, of unrewarded toil. In body he was almost prostrate by the pain of an arm on the tenth day of vaccination. Bodily pain stung him like a personal affront. "Some one will have to be made miserable for this," he once said during the throes of a toothache. He was no stranger to mental fatigue: but, when to that was added corporeal anguish, he came near collapse. His capacity for work was constricted: the mere sight of his writing materials filled him with disgust. But, because he had a horror of being discovered in a state of inaction, after breakfast he sat down as usual and tried to write. Dazed in a torrent of ideas, he painfully halted for words: stumbling in a maze of words, he frequently lost the thread of his argument: now and then, in sheer exhaustion, his pen remained immobile. He sat in a small low armchair which was covered with shabby brocade, dull-red and green. An old drawing-board, of the large size denominated Antiquarian, rested on his knees. The lower edge frayed the brocade on the arms of the chair. His little yellow cat Flavio lay asleep on the tilted board, nestling in the bend of his left elbow. That was the only living creature to whom he ever spoke with affection as well as with politeness. His left hand steadied his ms., the sheets of which were clipped together at the top by a metal clip. At the upper edge of the board a couple of Publishers' Dummies reposed, having the outward similitude of six-shilling novels: but he had filled their pages with his archaic handwriting. The first contained thoughts--not great thoughts, nor thoughts selected on any particular principle, but phrases and opinions such as Sophokles' denunciation, Ὡ μιαρον ἡθοϛ και γυναικοϛ ὑστερον, or Gabriele d'Annunzio's sentence "Old legitimate monarchies are everywhere declining, and Demos stands ready to swallow them down its miry throat."