The Pope shuts his eyes, from giddiness and from fasting,--for he has
eaten nothing for twenty-four hours, and the swaying motion of the chair
makes him dizzy and sick. But he waves at intervals his three fingers to
bless the crowd that kneel or bend before him, and then goes home to the
Vatican to dine with a clean conscience and a good appetite.
[Footnote A: "How," says Marforio to Pasquino, "shall I, being a true
son of the Holy Church, obtain admittance to her services?" To which
Pasquino returns for answer: "Declare that you are an Englishman, and
swear that you are a heretic."]
It is the universal rule among priests to fast before saying Mass, and
never to take the wafer or body of Christ upon a full stomach. The
law is _de rigueur_, and is almost never broken. But sometimes the
temptation of the appetite, it may be supposed, will overcome even a
pious man; for priest though one be, one is also flesh-and-blood. An
anecdote lately told me by the Conte Cignale (dei Selvaggi) may not
be out of place in this connection, and I instance it as an undoubted
exception to the general rule. A friend of his, an English artist,
enamored of Italian life, was spending the summer in one of the mountain
towns.
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