A number of brown stains had trickled down the front of the garment beside the buttons, and just like any good _bourgeois_, his Holiness had a handkerchief on his knees to wipe himself.

Apart from all this he seemed in good health, having recovered from his recent indisposition as easily as he usually recovered from such passing illnesses, sober, prudent old man that he was, quite free from organic disease, and simply declining by reason of progressive natural exhaustion.
Immediately on entering Pierre had felt that the Pope's sparkling eyes, those two black diamonds, were fixed upon him.

The silence was profound, and the lamps burned with motionless, pallid flames.

He had to approach, and after making the three genuflections prescribed by etiquette, he stooped over one of the Pope's feet resting on a cushion in order to kiss the red velvet slipper.

And on the Pope's side there was not a word, not a gesture, not a movement.