The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-09-27
THE PEASANT POPE
Day in the Village Where He Before Fame Found Him Out
BY VANCE THOMPSON,


In Venice the bells were ringing over
the city and the lagoons. and the noise
of them went far out to sea. The good
| Patriarch, the brave old man whom
every Venetian loved and most of them
knew, had been chosen Pope. My
| gondolier told me the news and crossed
himself.
| He has spoken to ne often and
many a time I've had his blessing"
said Giuseppe; ''he is one of us-one of
the people
| No Venetian said any word less kind
ly Cardinal Sarto had earned the love
of Venice. Stories of his generous
charity were told and retold by the
| boatmen at the traghetti and the idlers
i on the sunny quays. He lived very
simply on sixth of his small income.
| giving away the rest. For himself and
| the three of his sisters who lived with
him, humble girls, he reserved only
four hundred dollars. In order to go
up to Rome to the conclave he had
been obliged to pawn his ring of Cardi-
nal, so they said.
His sisters were at Capo della Chiesta
| when the news of his election came to
Venice, little after midday. One Of
| them was called up on the telephone
| by a priest commissioned to tell the
news.
| "Pronta! Who's there?" he asked.
'"The Patriarch's sister," she replied.
"Oh, no, you are not" said the priest,
the Pope's sister,"
"Oh, Gesu, Maria," cried the Door
spinster, Il shall never see him again.'
And that is quite true; the three
| lonely women have gone into sister
hood the Pope, clustered in the Vati-
can, will see them no more-them nor
the Venetian city of onyx and alabas-
ter nor the blue sea nor the fields of
| TreviSo.
Ny gondolier knew one of the Pope's
nephews, Giovanni, a wine-dealer in
the Via Garibaldi. (By the way, every
Venetian child is christened either
John or Mary, those names being po-
tent against witches, of which there are
only too many in this part of the
! world.) So we went to the wine-shop
| of Giovanni Sarto but the good man
| was away to Mantua, visiting the
Pope's brother. This adventure coming
to naught, l set out for Riese, where
Pho Decimo was born and where FOR
generation after generation his family
has lived, a thrifty, praiseworthy
peasantry. This little town in the
Trevisan marches is five miles from the
nearest railway station. 1t is on the
highway which goes from Castelfranco
to Asolo.
The drive from Castelfranco is de-
lightful, over a broad, level road, shad-
ed with plantain trees, running through
green fields or brown, shot with red
peoples, past an occasional farm, the
tiled buildings clustered behind white
walls The little horses trotted smart
ly on, their bells a-jangle: the driver,
a brown old man, smoked in silence.
We had not any tolerable method of
communication, for he spoke a vile
patois and my Italian (vile, too) is
Florentine. Once he pointed to a wall
ed field.
THAT was his fathers field said he.
There he worked, his father And
now the son is Pope. That makes a
man think, Signor; it makes him think
of religion
The carriers logic was perhaps a
trifie cloudy, but it ended in the right
direction.
Ahead of US the campanile of REESE
rose-all red in the sunlight-from the
green of field and tree; the Ginning of
the parish bells came to US. Then we
saw the little village. a simple, Old
World place brooding on the plain that
a IN nf
Asolo. far
dale cose del monde tristo RIO
There was a crowd in the piazza in
front of the parish church of San Mat
teo, all laboring folk, farmers of one
sort or another, with the exception of
a good humored old man in black, An
dreazzo, the syndic of the village, and
a friendly confrere from Verona 4
number of peasants followed me into
the church. One of them ..ointed out
a large half-length portrait of Cardi-
nal Sarto.
"Legete,' said he.
And I read: ITO Joseph Sarto, son of
this canton: 1903: he has honored his
native place: this is his portrait
A simple parish church, neither old
nor new-Iike a thousand others: far
| INCL hl liAC oLAe SlItCl 10 the OIdlOiI 40
dele Cendrolle, for which the Pope mad
a special veneration and which. out Of
| his own purse, he restored. Neither
of them claims artistic notice, for
| strangely enough this little village
| lacks almost entirely the grace Of
| things Italian. AS 1 came out the syn
| die gave me Cfor the second time) the
talk of the day. He explained with
beaming face and many gestures how
the good news had been brought to
Riese; dark with Importance, the re-
| porter of the Adige, of Verona, took
notes. A breathess boy on a bicycle
| had come from Castelfranco. At first
no one believed the GREATNESS boy
| They told him that such jests were not
| permissible. Then the syndic's tele-
phone brought confirmation from the
project. The syndic issued a proclama-
ton. 1 have a copy of it, freshly writ
| ten by the hand of one of Signor An
| dreazzo's numerous sons. 1t begins:
THE syndic of Riese, in the name of
the entire exultant population" The
good man read it aloud to US; MANY
| times that day he had read it to the
entire and exultant population there as
sembled IN front Of gray Saint Mat
thew, clear through to the "fervid
| wishes and auguries of glory and pros