My father waited three weeks, and meantime he occupied himself in seeing
the sights of the old city.
But the mighty remains which are the luminous light-houses of the
past--the Forum with the broken columns of its dead centuries; the
Coliseum with its gigantic ruins, like the desolate crater of a moon;
the Campagna with its hollow, crumbling tombs and shattered
aqueducts,--only vexed and irritated him.
"Guess if I had my way," he said, "I would just clean out this old
stone-yard of monuments to dead men, and make it more fit for living
ones."
At length the Bishop came to say that the necessary business had been
completed, and that to mark its satisfactory settlement the Pope had
signified his willingness to receive in private audience both my father
and myself.
This threw me into a state of the greatest nervousness, for I had begun
to realise that my father's business concerned myself, so that when,
early the following morning (clad according to instructions, my father
in evening dress and I in a long black mantilla), we set out for the
Vatican, I was in a condition of intense excitement.
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