I stop a moment to look at him! I had always seen him silent and
thoughtful through the fields, when the black lava smoked furiously
covered by the sepulchral sheet of ashes, in those towns destroyed by
the stones, but in that day he was thoughtful and sad. On his brow was
written a silent sorrow.
We were in a deserted spot, outside Somma Vesuviana in the saddest hour
of that sad Monday, which will never leave anybody's memory. We saw him
going away, without daring to inquire from anybody, what could be the
reason of his depression. But two hours later we found out that he
had been witnessing at S. Giuseppe the drawing out of the bodies from
the ruins of the church, where more than two hundred persons had been
buried. Till then the Duke had only witnessed the destruction of the
houses and lands where human life had been spared. But there he had
seen death, the formidable host, and all the horror of it, and all his
sorrow as a man and as a Christian rose from his kind tender heart and
showed in his brow.
* * * * *
No commemorative inscription, nor the plause of assemblies can be an
adequate recompense to the work of this prince. These forms are all
academical and nearly bureaucratic. Let them go with the banalities
which are still smotering modern society, it is difficult to escape
such conventionalism. For us that is not enough. We think with terror
of what would have become of one hundred and fifty thousand people,
running away under a rain of fire, if the Duke of Aosta had not been
there! We tremble at the thought of what would have happened if he
had not thought of all, ordered all, provided to all. What is an
inscription, a vote, an applause before this real great soul, where
one finds harmoniously blended, the virtues of the soldier and of
the Christian? where a prince has all the virtues of a true citizen,
where heroism is united to simplicity and where the ardour of good is
ineffable? Let your memorial stone raise a word of admiration, but all
this will never tell how high, pure, efficacious has been the energetic
enthusiasm of Emmanuele Filiberto in order to save a whole population.
Let him continue. Don't you see? All his spirit and will are now ready
to every thing. He wants to get to the point, he wants not only to help
but he is already looking forward to the building of the places. He
wants to save the lands, the fields, he wants work to start over again,
he wants every man to build again his roof, his bread. Let him continue.
To morrow every body will forget perhaps the terrible catastrophe. He
does not forget, he will not let the others forget, he will surmount
every obstacle with his moral strength, he will accomplish a longer,
deeper, and more lasting work, he will rebuild a civil life there where
it has been destroyed. We, profoundly moved, and full of admiration for
all that this prince is doing, we mark this first period of his great
work, where he has saved by his example and his strength of action this
country, and we see him going ahead fortified by his faith, towards the
greatest of works, and our eyes are wandering, and our soul believes in
him.
April 26 1906.