"Is your Eminence unwell ?" "No, no, it's nothing but a dreadful cold which I can't get rid of.

And then, too, I have so many things to attend to just now." Pierre looked at the Cardinal as he appeared in the livid light from the window, puny, lopsided, with the left shoulder higher than the right, and not a sign of life on his worn and ashen countenance.

The young priest was reminded of one of his uncles, who, after thirty years spent in the offices of a French public department, displayed the same lifeless glance, parchment-like skin, and weary hebetation.

Was it possible that this withered old man, so lost in his black cassock with red edging, was really one of the masters of the world, with the map of Christendom so deeply stamped on his mind, albeit he had never left Rome, that the Prefect of the Propaganda did not take a decision without asking his opinion?
"Sit down, Monsieur l'Abbe," said the Cardinal.

"So you have come to see me--you have something to ask of me!" And, whilst disposing himself to listen, he stretched out his thin bony hands to finger the documents heaped up before him, glancing at each of them like some general, some strategist, profoundly versed in the science of his profession, who, although his army is far away, nevertheless directs it to victory from his private room, never for a moment allowing it to escape his mind.
Pierre was somewhat embarrassed by such a plain enunciation of the interested object of his visit; still, he decided to go to the point.
"Yes, indeed," he answered, "it is a liberty I have taken to come and appeal to your Eminence's wisdom for advice.