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Show HOUSEHOLD AND LIFE OF THE SISTERS OF THE POPE The three sisters of the Pope, despite de-spite the quiet and retirement of their lives in their modest apartments near the great square of St. Peter's, have been several times "written up" since the accession of their distinguished brother to the papal throne, but never so admirably and interestingly as by Mrs. Margaret B. Downing, an American Ameri-can newspaper woman who was at one time Washington correspondent of the Universe. Mrs. Downing writes as follows fol-lows in the Baltimore Sun: "There go the Sorelle Sarto," said a Roman monsignor to a group of waiting Americans in one of the Vatican antechambers' ante-chambers' the other day. "They are going into the garden, and when the Holy Father has finished his work for the afternoon he will join them and they will walk together and chat and eat some of the peaches and grapes. Sometimes they sing the old Venetian songs the gondoliers' ballads for the Holy Father loves those old melodies, and now he hears them only when he and his sisters are together." The elderly Italian women passed by, black-robed as nuns and wearing the inevitable in-evitable veil partially concealing their features. They had been to make their week-day visit to their brother, but affairs af-fairs of state had kept him chained in the office. By and by he would join them in the garden. So they passed through the inner court, well known to all suppliants for Papal audiences, and went down the stairs which lead Into the vast enclosure called the Vatican gardens. Presently the Americans were called .up higher, and after going through numerous, chambers gorgeous in crimson silk they came to the small audience chamber where the supreme Pontiff receives special spe-cial visitors. He is a benign and gentle Pontiff, this Pope, who is the two hundred and sixty-fourth successor of St. Peter, the Vicar of Christ of earth and the bearer of many other titles of tremendous significance sig-nificance in spiritual realms. But in the midst of the awe which everyone must feel in the presence of so august a personage came the vision of an old man sitting in the garden with his sisters and singing the songs of his exiled home. That is the picture of Pius X which must appeal most forcibly forci-bly to those who study the personal side of great men. . The Sorelle Sarto, which is Italian for "the Sarto - sisters," in their modest suite of apartments in the Piazzo Rusti-cucci, Rusti-cucci, just at the feet of the grand col-onade col-onade of Bernini, guard their privacy as carefully as the queen in her palace on the Quirinal Hill. They have as attendants at-tendants two faithful lay sisters from a near-by convent, and no unauthorized visitor can hope to evade their vigilance. These lay sisters have laid aside their conventional attire and are robed like the general Italian house servant. Twice a week the three old ladies go to the Vatican always on Sunday, to hear the Mass which the Pontiff says in his private chapel, and at some appointed ap-pointed time during the week. They avoid publicity in every manner possible, possi-ble, going and coming without the slightest ceremony and shrinking from strangers with the timidity of country children. One can understand the depth of character char-acter in the Pontiff by a very slight knowledge of his sisters. All the world knows how they begged that the title of "countess" should not, in accordance with Papal tradition, be conferred on them, and how they love to be known simply as the sisters of the Holy Father. Fa-ther. Their door plate bears the simple inscription, in-scription, "The Sorelle Sarto." and within with-in reigns the simplicity which their illustrious il-lustrious brother has evolved for his living rooms out of the magnificent apartments in the Vatican. Their sitting sit-ting room is an imposing apartment, with pale green walls and ceiling, and a somewhat pretentious suite of furniture, furni-ture, relics of the former grandeur of the historic palace. But the sisters, like all Italian women wo-men of the humbler classes, divide their time into three parts one for labor, one for prayer and one for sleep. They never nev-er think of such a thing as sitting down with their hands folded. They invariably invaria-bly carry scissors at their sides and wear working aprons. Rosa is the eldest of the Pontiff's three unmarried sisters, and is a personage per-sonage of much importance in the household. SWe is very fond of her young niece, Ermingilda Parolin, the daughter of the oldest of the six sisters, sis-ters, Theresa, who mrried the grocer of Riese. Ermingilda -spends much time in Rome, and gowns herself very modish-ly, modish-ly, and is learning French and music at the Sacred Heart convent. Doubtless her good aunts hope that she will marry suitably a man who can give her more comforts than they or their great brother broth-er knew. To his sisters the Pontiff is only Bep-pi, Bep-pi, the name he loves best, for so his mother used to call him. He is still the devoted brother to these old women, to whom he seems almost divine. He tells them all the things about his visitors which he thinks will interest them. He gives them such personal presents given giv-en him that will be appropriate in their humble home. A bishop from the Rocky mountains recently presented the Pontiff with a magnificent bearskin rug, and this handsome gift occupies the place of honor in the sitting room of his sisters. He gave them also his most cherished possession, which they show only reverently rev-erently and on special occasions the Jeweled and gorgeously illuminated album al-bum which contains all the signatures of the Venetians, sent after the election. Over the mantel in the sitting room is a portrait done in oils of the little peasant mother she who worked at dressmaking in order to make the extra ex-tra money required to keep her talented tal-ented boy at school. A similar picture hangs in the pontiff's .bedchamber. The Sorelle Sarto use bright red "handkerchiefs, and their ways of living are as plain as when, they yiived in Riese. They have a horror of any kind of extravagance, and only their brother's broth-er's command induced them to keep the lay sisters to attend to their housework. house-work. They should have preferred to do it themselves, "for," explained Maria, Ma-ria, the youngest and most modern-looking modern-looking of the sisters, "our brother hag less to give us now, for has he not the poor of the entire world to think about? Before it was only Venice." If one is so privileged as to see the ruler of the Catholic world in his private pri-vate apartments in the Vatican, many traits of his sisters are apparent. On his desk lie a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles. Dozens of personages have offered him gold-rimmed glasses, but he clings to his steel spectacles, the friends of his early manhood. He has had the lenses renewed several times to meet exigencies, but he refuses such an extravagance as gold affairs. His snuffbox is not the gold and jeweled' jew-eled' affair which historic descriptions of such articles would lead one to expect. ex-pect. It is a battered affair of tortoise shell, the gift of a dead friend, and he used it for twenty years. On the pontiff's desk, a wide, plain affair of dark wood, stands a little bottle bot-tle of sand, for in this primitive way does he dry his ink. His pens are quills and his inkwell, of brass and crystal, is quite within the reach of the most modest clerk. Just in front of the pope stands a statuette of the Cure d'Ars. that venerable ven-erable French parish priest whom the head of the church reveres above some more pretentious saints and doctors of the faith. He never fails to speak of his admiration for the good cure if he sees the eye of his visitor wandering to this ornament. He rates the parish priest highest in his estimate of the working body of clerics. Just behind the desk in the pope's office of-fice are some cabinets, and in these he keeps little gifts, which he makes specially spe-cially favored guests. Invariably when he wants these souvenirs he walks briskly around his desk and swings open the doors for himself. This habit of waiting on himself is rather disconcerting to the Vatican officials, of-ficials, who are always on hand to perform per-form these little offices. His gifts are modest, always being mosaics from the Vatican manufactories, medals, pictures pic-tures and rosaries which he has blessed. In making a gift he invariably requires the recipient's promise to say a daily prayer for him. He is quite insistent about these prayers. A well known Sulpician priest, recently re-cently a resident in Rome, purchased 500 small photographs of the Holy Father, Fa-ther, which he took with him to have blessed at his farewell audience. The pontiff was interested in the fact that the priest intended these as gifts for his countless students and friends in every part of the country. "Tell your friends to whom you give these pictures," he admonished, "to put them in their prayer books, and when they see my face to say a little prayer for me to say a prayer every time they look upon my pictured face for I need prayers always, and many of them." Just as simple as the office eminently emi-nently a working office piled high with letters and neatly folded papers is the tiny chapel where the pope says his daily mass. In the office there are no decorations decora-tions and few pictures. The chapel is so tiny that forty persons feel themselves them-selves uncomfortably crowded and the chamberlains rarely allow more than half that number the privilege, of attending at-tending the Holy Father's mass. The room is lighted by one window, curtained cur-tained In cream lace and red silk brocade bro-cade hangings, like all the others in the suite. On week days only the chaplain attends at-tends the mass, but on Sunday there is more ceremony. The secretaries and others close to the person of the pontiff assist at the service. At the conclusion conclu-sion of the mass Pius seats himself on the left of the altar and hears a mass of thanksgiving, said by his chaplain. After this he has his frugal breakfast. The sisters, in Palazzo Rusticucci, sit down to their dinner at exactly the hour-when the pontiff is dining. The second sister, Anna, is a famous cook, and many a dish is smuggled into the Vatican kitchen which has been prepared across the way in the small rooms in Palazzo Rusticucci. But the brother is seldom in that secret, and his good sister finds her reward when she asks about his meal if he mentions the dish and remarks, as he sometimes, does, that it was almost as good as if it were prepared in Venice or Riese. The pontiff is fond of talking over the 'phone, and a day seldom passes without a little chat with his family in Riese and with some of the clergy in Venice. 1$. is his one solace for not seeing see-ing his beloved Venice to hear the voice of the speaker. Last year a Venetian prelate, knowing know-ing the pope's preference for the gem-dolier gem-dolier songs, ordered a specially constructed con-structed music box, by which all the street ballads were finely executed. But, like all those who love good music, mu-sic, this arrangement did not appeal to the pope's artistic sense. Gondoliers' songs in this form, he remarked, were like canned fruit good, if the fresh is not procurable. The sisters usually speak only their own tongue the Trevisian dialect though they have learned the Roman dialect and, of course, were familiar with that of Venice. Their intercourse inter-course with the world is much circumscribed circum-scribed even in Rome, where the ways of Riese are as the ways of foreigners. for-eigners. One of the lay sisters who attends them speaks French and a few words of English. But conversation with the pope's sisters, unless one comes from their country, is limited. They possess that elegance and stateliness of manner man-ner which seems the inheritance of the most humble Italian. It should be an encouragement to all youths wrestling over Caesar and the classics to know that the pope's sisters attribute his transcendent piety, his broad humanism, his goodness of heart, his learning and his wisdom all to the fact that "he was from the very beginning be-ginning so "good a Latin scholar." |