Conclave Read Online Free PDF

biggest cassock, so they had to button up the front and split the seam at the back – they say he stepped into it arms-first, like a surgeon into his gown, and then the papal tailor sewed him into it.’ He replaced the shoes in the box and crossed himself. ‘May God bless whoever is called to wear them.’
    The three men left the sacristy and strolled back the way they had come, along the carpeted aisle, through the marble screen and down the wooden ramp into the vestibule. Incongruous in one corner, positioned side by side, stood two squat grey metal stoves. Both were about waist-high, one round and one square, each with a copper chimney. The two chimneys had been soldered together to form a single flue. Lomeli eyed it dubiously. It looked very rickety. It rose almost twenty metres, supported by a scaffolding tower, and disappeared through a hole cut in the window. In the round stove they were supposed to burn the voting papers after each ballot, to ensure its secrecy; in the square stove, they released smoke canisters – black to indicate an inconclusive ballot, white when they had a new Pope. The entire apparatus was archaic, absurd, and oddly wonderful.
    ‘The system has been tested?’ asked Lomeli.
    O’Malley spoke patiently. ‘Yes, Eminence. Several times.’
    ‘Of course you would have done that.’ He patted the Irishman’s arm. ‘I’m sorry to fuss.’
    They went out across the marbled expanse of the Sala Regia, down the staircase and out into the cobbled car park of the Cortile del Maresciallo. Large wheeled refuse bins overflowed with rubbish. Lomeli said, ‘They’ll be gone by tomorrow, I trust?’
    ‘Yes, Eminence.’
    The trio passed under an archway and into the next courtyard, and the next, and the next – a labyrinth of secret cloisters, with the Sistine always on their left. Lomeli never failed to be disappointed by the dull dun brickwork of the chapel’s exterior. Why had every ounce of human genius been poured into that exquisite interior – almost too much genius, in his opinion: it gave one a kind of aesthetic indigestion – and yet seemingly no thought at all had been given to the outside? It looked like a warehouse, or a factory. Or perhaps that was the point.
The treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in God’s mystery—
    His thoughts were interrupted by O’Malley, who was walking at his side. ‘By the way, Eminence, Archbishop Woźniak wants to have a word.’
    ‘Well I don’t think that’s possible, do you? The cardinals will begin arriving in an hour.’
    ‘I told him that, but he seemed rather agitated.’
    ‘What’s it about?’
    ‘He wouldn’t tell me.’
    ‘But really, this is too ridiculous!’ He appealed to Mandorff for support. ‘The Casa Santa Marta will be sealed off at six. He should have come to me before now. I can’t possibly spare the time.’
    ‘It’s thoughtless, to say the least.’
    ‘I’ll tell him,’ said O’Malley.
    They walked on, past the saluting Swiss Guards in their sentry boxes and out into the road. They had barely gone a dozen paces before Lomeli’s self-reproaches set in. He had spoken too harshly. It was vain of him. It was uncharitable. He was becoming puffed up with his own importance. He would do well to remember that in a few days the Conclave would be over and then no one would be interested in him either. No longer would anyone have to pretend to listen to his stories about canopies and fat Popes. Then he would know what it felt like to be Woźniak, who had lost not only his beloved Holy Father but his position, his home and his prospects, all at the same instant.
Forgive me, God.
    ‘Actually, that’s ungenerous of me,’ he said. ‘The poor fellow will be worrying about his future. Tell him I’ll be at the Casa Santa Marta, meeting the cardinals as they arrive, and I’ll try to spare him a few minutes afterwards.’
    ‘Yes, Eminence,’ said O’Malley, and made a note on his clipboard.
    *
    Before the Casa