nine o'clock at night
Some of its members made no effort to conceal their delight at the blow they had struck at the ruling classes . But there was one man in Rome who felt no joy in his triumph . It was the Pope . At nine o'clock at night he visited the `` urn '' called the `` Sepulchre . '' Borne amid the light of torches on his _ sedia _ with his _ flabelli _ waving on either hand , under a white canopy upheld by prelates , he passed through the glittering rooms of his own palace , along the dark corridors of the Vatican and down the marble stairs , accompanied by his guards in helmets and preceded by the papal cross covered with a violet veil , into the great Basilica , lit only by large candles in iron stands , and looking plain and barn-like and full of shadows in the gloom and the smoky air . But after he had visited the Sepulchre , gorgeously illuminated , while the cantors sang the _ Verbum Caro _ , after he had knelt in silence and had risen , and the torches of his procession had been put out , and he had returned to his chair to be borne into the Sacristy , and the poor people , lifted to a height of emotion not often reached by the human soul , had broken again into a last delirious shout of affection , he dropped his head and wept . At that moment the Sacristy was empty save for the custodian in black cassock and biretta , who was warming his hands over a large bronze scaldino ; but in the Archpriest 's room adjoining , with its gilt arm-chair and stools of red plush , Father Pifferi in his ordinary brown habit was waiting for the Pope .