Heiyan yu Baiyan

Black and white smoke are the visible signals by which the papal conclave communicates whether its ballots have produced a result: black smoke marks an inconclusive vote, while white smoke announces an election. In the novel, the black smoke recurs at precise hours above the Sistine Chapel, turning a secret process into a public spectacle and charting the growing uncertainty surrounding the choice of a new Pope.

Meaning and Procedure

The smoke is the public face of a tightly controlled electoral procedure. After the votes have been checked and recounted, the ballot papers are burned; chemicals in a separate stove determine the color of the smoke. The distinction is simple to read from outside the chapel, but its simplicity conceals the counting, safeguards, and unresolved deliberations within.

The first described signal follows the vote-counting process. Three revisers, selected by ballot, recount the tallies, and the ballot papers are burned in a round stove. A second, square stove contains a cartridge of potassium perchlorate, anthracene, and sulphur, ignited by a switch. At 7:42 p.m., black smoke rises from a temporary metal chimney above the Sistine Chapel. The precise time and carefully arranged apparatus make the signal both ritual and mechanism: a secret ballot becomes an unmistakable public announcement.

Repeated Black Smoke and Public Expectation

The signal’s meaning acquires force through repetition. At 12:37 p.m. on another ballot, black smoke issues from the chapel chimney as the cardinals hurry back to Casa Santa Marta. Few remain to watch the papers burn. Meanwhile, television experts continue confidently to predict a victory for Aldo Bellini. The smoke contradicts those forecasts without disclosing why the vote remains unresolved.

After the fifth ballot, the Dean tells the assembled cardinals that no candidate has reached the required majority and that voting will resume the next morning. At 6:22 p.m., black smoke again pours from the chimney, picked out by a searchlight mounted on St Peter’s Basilica. Broadcasters who had expected an election express surprise, and commentators begin to doubt Bellini’s support. In the United Kingdom, betting odds shift: Joshua Adeyemi becomes the new favourite, and speculation turns to the possibility of the first black Pope. The unchanged signal thus accompanies a changing interpretation of the contest.

The Smoke as a Measure of Uncertainty

Black smoke does not merely report that a ballot has failed to elect a Pope; its repeated appearance exposes the limits of outside prediction. Each signal confirms the absence of a decision, while the press and public continually revise their expectations about who might prevail. The image of a hidden vote made visible only as colored smoke gives the conclave a public rhythm without making its deliberations transparent.

That pressure becomes explicit when Jacopo Baldassare Lomeli asks Raymond O’Malley what the media are saying. O’Malley reports that Joshua Adeyemi is still considered the favourite and warns that, without white smoke that day, they may begin to lose control of events. The press office, he says, is struggling to answer speculation that the Church is in crisis, while security concerns are heightened by the reported presence of four million pilgrims in Rome. At that point, white smoke represents more than the completion of a ballot: it is the awaited end to uncertainty, even as black smoke continues to leave the outcome open.