Unique, the Superhuman! And what a miracle, incessantly renewed, was that
of Heaven deigning to descend into human flesh, of the Deity fixing His
abode in His chosen servant, whom He consecrated above and beyond all
others, endowing him with all power and all science! What sacred
perturbation, what emotion fraught with distracted love might one not
feel at the thought of the Deity being ever there in the depths of that
man's eyes, speaking with his voice and emanating from his hand each time
that he raised it to bless! Could one imagine the exorbitant absoluteness
of that sovereign who was infallible, who disposed of the totality of
authority in this world and of salvation in the next! At all events, how
well one understood that souls consumed by a craving for faith should fly
towards him, that those who at last found the certainty they had so
ardently sought should seek annihilation in him, the consolation of
self-bestowal and disappearance within the Deity Himself.

Meantime, the ceremony was drawing to an end; Baron de Fouras was now
presenting the members of the committee and a few other persons of
importance. There was a slow procession with trembling genuflections and
much greedy kissing of the papal ring and slipper. Then the banners were
offered, and Pierre felt a pang on seeing that the finest and richest of
them was one of Lourdes, an offering no doubt from the Fathers of the
Immaculate Conception. On one side of the white, gold-bordered silk Our
Lady of Lourdes was painted, while on the other appeared a portrait of
Leo XIII. Pierre saw the Pope smile at the presentment of himself, and
was greatly grieved thereat, as though, indeed, his whole dream of an
intellectual, evangelical Pope, disentangled from all low superstition,
were crumbling away. And just then his eyes met those of Nani, who from
the outset had been watching him with the inquisitive air of a man who is
making an experiment.