“_April 10th_.--A true Campagna day, as Italianised as I could make it. We had a frugal _colazione_ under the pergola of an Appian Way-side inn, watched by half a dozen hungry cats, that unattractive, wild, malignant kind of cat peculiar to Italy. The girl who waited on us drew our white wine in a decanter from what looked like a well in the garden. It had, apparently, not ‘been cool’d a long age in _that_ deep-delved earth,’ but it did very well. I was perfectly happy. This old-fashioned _al fresco_ entertainment had the local colour which I look for when I travel and which is getting rarer year by year. Our Colosseum moonlight was more weird than ever. At eleven we had our moon. It was a large, battered, woeful, waning old moon, that looked in at us through the broken arch. An opportune owl, which had been screeching like a cat in the shade, flitted across its sloping disc just at the supreme moment.”
To receive Holy Communion at the hands of the Holy Father is a privilege for which we should be very thankful. It was mine and E.’s on Easter morning that year, at his private Mass in the Sistine Chapel. There I saw Pius X. for the first time. Goodness and compassion shine from that sad and gentle face. It is the general custom to kiss the ‘Fisherman’s ring’ on the Pope’s hand before receiving, but Pius X. very markedly prevents this. One can understand! Our audience with the Holy Father took place on the eve of our departure. There was a never-absent look with him of what I may call the submissive sense of a too-heavy burden of responsibility. No photographs convey the right impression of this Pope. He was very pale, very spiritual, very kind and a little weary; most gentle and touching in his manner. The World War at its outset broke that tender heart. I sent him my “Letters from the Holy Land,” for which I received very urbane thanks from one of the cardinals. I don’t think the Holy Father knows a single word of English, and I wonder what he made of it.
As to our tour homeward, taking Florence and Venice on the way, I think we will take that as read. I revel in the Diary in all the dear old Italian details, marred only by the change I noticed in Venice as regards her broken silence. The hurry of modern life has invaded even the “silent city,” and there is too much electric glare in the lighting now, at night, for the old enjoyment of her moonlights. It annoyed me to see the moon looking quite shabby above the incandescent globes on the Riva.