(5 of 10)
A deadlock threatened, and as the Cardinals broke for Sunday-night dinner, talk turned to non-Italians—"like spontaneous combustion," says one participant. The germ of the Wojtyla candidacy began overnight with "a word here and a word there," according to another. On Monday morning's fifth ballot, Wojtyla got only a few votes, but they captured attention. Holland's Johannes Willebrands drew a respectable vote, and decided to withdraw in Wojtyla's favor. Wojtyla gained noticeably on the sixth ballot. Over lunch, Wojtyla was so visibly upset by the coalescing forces that his friends feared he might refuse the papacy; Wyszynski took him aside and reminded him that acceptance is a Cardinal's duty. On the seventh ballot, only a lack of votes from the 25 Italian Cardinals stopped his election. Then the dam broke and virtually all but the ultraconservatives swung to the Pole. On the eighth and final ballot, according to most inside counts, he won a comfortable 94 votes from all but the hard-line right and a scattering of others. The conclave erupted in applause.
The morning after the election, as the Cardinals prepared to concelebrate Mass in the Sistine Chapel, one of them bumped into Wyszynski in the breakfast room and said cheerfully, "There is sure to be great jubilation in your country today, don't you think?" "Yes," said Wyszynski somberly, "but there will be none in Wojtyla." Indeed, Wojtyla told the St. Peter's crowd that "I was afraid to accept this nomination," and on at least three occasions in the first 24 hours he wept openly: in the conclave, upon his election; during his first appearance on the balcony; and the following evening when he drove in an open sedan to Rome's Gemelli Clinic to visit a friend, Bishop Andre-Marie Deskur, who was recovering from a heart attack. He made some remarks to the crowd at the hospital, but when he was finished he forgot to impart the apostolic blessing; an escorting prelate had to remind him to do it. At that point, John Paul II gave another glimpse of the warmth and humanity that helped win him the election. His face crinkling in a smile, he said, "I guess even a Pope has to learn his trade." Later that night he telephoned an old priest friend in Poland, to whom he confessed: "I call because I feel a little alone. Without you I am a little sad."
His life in Poland was hard. Wojtyla's mother died when he was nine and he was brought up by his father, who subsisted for the most part on an army sergeant's pension. Though many Cardinals—and Popes—have been trained from early youth in the hothouse atmosphere of minor seminaries, Wojtyla went to ordinary high school. He attended Mass each morning and headed a religious society, but equally strong adolescent passions were literature and the theater. He was the producer and lead actor in a school troupe that toured southeastern Poland doing Shakespeare and modern Polish plays.