He had imagined (he scarcely knew why) the Vatican to be a place of silence and solemn dignity and darkness, with a few sentries here and there, a few prelates, a cardinal or two--with occasionally a group of very particular visitors, or, on still rarer occasions, a troop of pilgrims being escorted to some sight or some audience.
Certainly it was not at all like this to-night.
First, the whole place was illuminated in nearly every window.
Huge electric lights blazed behind screens in all the courts; bands of music were stationed at discreet intervals one from another; and through every section that he went, through corridors, reception-rooms, up and down stairways, seething in every court, streaming through every passage and thoroughfare, moved a multitude of persons--largely ecclesiastics, but also very largely otherwise (though there were no ladies present)--talking, questioning, laughing, wholly, it seemed, at their ease, and appearing to find nothing unusual in the entire affair.

Here and there in some of the great rooms small courts seemed to be in process--a company of perhaps thirty or forty would be standing round two or three notabilities who sat.

There was usually a cardinal here, sometimes two or three; and on three or four occasions he saw what he imagined must be royalty of some kind, seated with a cardinal, while the rest stood.
It was to him a very extraordinary spectacle, in spite of his further initiation that day into this new world, so utterly unfamiliar to him; and it seemed once more to drive home to his consciousness this strange state of affairs of which his friend had tried to persuade him, but which he yet found difficult wholly to take in.

Certainly the world and the Church seemed on very cordial terms.

.