Explore "Hadrian the Seventh" by Frederick Rolfe on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Being physically tired with the exertion of withstanding the concentrated gaze of Rome, He rested all the afternoon. The palace was a scene of commotion. Cardinals and their familiars cackled and cooed and squeaked and growled in corners: or arranged for return to their distant sees. Workmen cleared-away the structure of the Conclave. Hadrian made an attempt to get-into the gardens with a book: but, obsequious black velvet chamberlains with their heads in frills like saucers made themselves so extremely necessary, and Auditors of the Ruota scudded along bye-paths with such obvious secrecy and bounded out of box-hedges before Him by carefully calculated accident so very frequently, that at last He took refuge in the pontifical apartment. He rang the gong and sent for Caerleon.
"We have a more or less distinct remembrance of a place on the Lake of Albano, called Castel something."