Next morning David Rossi put on evening dress, in obedience to the
etiquette of the opening day of Parliament. Before going to the ceremony
he answered Roma's letter of the night before.
"DEAR R.,--If anything could add to the bitterness of my regret at
ending an intercourse which has brought me the happiest moments of
my life, it would be the tone of your sweet and charming letter.
You ask me if the woman I love is beautiful. She is more than
beautiful, she is lovely. You ask me if she knows that I love her.
I have never dared to disclose my secret, and if I could have
believed that she had ever so much as guessed at it, I should have
found some consolation in a feeling which is too deep for the
humiliations of pride. You ask me if she is worthy of my
friendship and love. She is worthy of the love and friendship of a
better man than I am or can ever hope to be.
"Yet even if she were not so, even if there were, as you say, a
fault in her, who am I that I should judge her harshly? I am not
one of those who think that a woman is fallen because
circumstances and evil men have conspired against her. I reject
the monstrous theory that while a man may redeem the past, a woman
never can. I abhor the judgment of the world by which a woman may
be punished because she is trying to be pure, and dragged down
because she is rising from the dirt. And if she had sinned as I
have sinned, and suffered as I have suffered, I would pray for
strength enough to say, 'Because I love her we are one, and we
stand or fall together.'
"But she is sweet, and pure, and true, and brave, and noble-hearted,
and there is no fault in her, or she would not be the daughter of
her father, who was the noblest man I ever knew or ever expect to
know. No, the root of the separation is in myself, in myself only,
in my circumstances and the personal situation I find myself in.
"And yet it is difficult for me to state the obstacle which
divides us, or to say more about it than that it is permanent and
insurmountable. I should deceive myself if I tried to believe that
time would remove or lessen it, and I have contended in vain with
feelings which have tempted me to hold on at any price to the only
joy and happiness of my life.
"To go to her and open my heart is impossible, for personal
intercourse is precisely the peril I am trying to avoid. How weak
I am in her company! Even when her dress touches me at passing, I
am thrilled with an emotion I cannot master; and when she lifts
her large bright eyes to mine, I am the slave of a passion which
conquers all my will.
"No, it is not lightly and without cause that I have taken a step
which sacrifices love to duty. I love her, with all my heart and
soul and strength I love her, and that is why she and I, for her
sake more than mine, should never meet again.
"I note what you say about the man M----, but you must forgive me
if I cannot be much concerned about it. There is nobody in London
who knows me in the character I now bear, and can link it to the
one you are thinking of. Good-bye, again! God be with you and keep
you always! D."
Having written this letter, David Rossi sealed it carefully and posted
it with his own hand on his way to the opening of Parliament.
V
The day was fine, and the city was bright with many flags in honour of
the King. All the streets leading from the royal palace to the Hall of
the Deputies were lined with people. The square in front of the
Parliament House was kept clear by a cordon of Carabineers, but the open
windows of the hotels and houses round about were filled with faces.
David Rossi entered the house by the little private door for deputies in
the side street. The chamber was already thronged, and as full of
movement as a hive of bees. Ladies in light dresses, soldiers in
uniform, diplomatists wearing decorations, senators and deputies in
white cravats and gloves, were moving to their places and saluting each
other with bows and smiles.
Rossi slipped into the place he usually occupied among the deputies. It
was the corner seat by the door on the left of the royal canopy,
immediately facing the section, which had been apportioned to the Court
tribune. He did not lift his eyes as he entered, but he was conscious of
a tall, well-rounded yet girlish figure in a grey dress that glistened
in a ray of sunshine, with dark hair under a large black hat, and
flashing eyes that seemed to pierce into his own like a shaft of light.
Beautiful ladies with big oriental eyes were about her, and young
deputies were using their opera-glasses upon them with undisguised
curiosity. There was much gossip, some laughter, and a good deal of
gesticulation. The atmosphere was one of light spirits, approaching
gaiety, the atmosphere of the theatre or the ballroom.
The clock over the reporters' gallery showed seven minutes after the
hour appointed, when the walls of the chamber shook with the vibration
of a cannon-shot. It was a gun fired at the Castle of St. Angelo to
announce the King's arrival. At the same moment there came the muffled
strains of the royal hymn played by the band in the piazza. The little
gales of gossip died down in an instant, and in dead silence the
assembly rose to its feet.
A minute afterwards the King entered amid a fanfare of trumpets, the
shouts of many voices, and the clapping of hands. He was a young man, in
the uniform of a general, with a face that was drawn into deep lines
under the eyes by ill-health and anxiety. Two soldiers, carrying their
brass helmets with waving plumes, walked by his side, and a line of his
Ministers followed. His Queen, a tall and beautiful girl, came behind,
surrounded by many ladies.
The King took his seat under the baldacchino, with his Ministers on his
left. The Queen sat on his right hand, with her ladies beside her. They
bowed to the plaudits of the assembly, and the drawn face of the young
King wore a painful smile.
The Baron Bonelli, in court dress and decorations, stood at the King's
elbow, calm, dignified, self-possessed--the one strong face and figure
in the group under the canopy. After the cheering and the shouting had
subsided he requested the assembly, at the command of His Majesty, to
resume their seats. Then he handed a paper to the King.
It was the King's speech to his Parliament, and he read it nervously in
a voice that had not learned to control itself. But the speech was
sufficiently emphatic, and its words were grandiose and even florid.
It consisted of four clauses. In the first clause the King thanked God
that his country was on terms of amity with all foreign countries, and
invoked God's help in the preservation of peace. The second clause was
about the increase of the army.
"The army," said the King, "is very dear to me, as it has always been
dear to my family. My illustrious grandfather, who granted freedom to
the kingdom, was a soldier; my honoured father was a soldier, and it is
my pride that I am myself a soldier also. The army was the foundation of
our liberty and it is now the security of our rights. On the strength
and stability of the army rest the power of our nation abroad and the
authority of our institutions at home. It is my firm resolve to maintain
the army in the future as my illustrious ancestors have maintained it in
the past, and therefore my Government will propose a bill which is
intended to increase still further its numbers and its efficiency."
This was received with a great outburst of applause and the waving of
many handkerchiefs. It was observed that some of the ladies shed tears.
The third clause was about the growth and spread of anarchism.
"My house," said the King, "gave liberty to the nation, and now it is my
duty and my hope to give security and strength. It is known to
Parliament that certain subversive elements, not in Italy alone, but
throughout Europe, throughout the world, have been using the most
devilish machinations for the destruction of all order, human and
divine. Cold, calculating criminals have perpetrated crimes against the
most innocent and the most highly placed, which have sent a thrill of
horror into all humane hearts. My Government asks for an absolute power
over such criminals, and if we are to bring security to the State, we
must reinvigorate the authority to which society trusts the high mandate
of protecting and governing."
A still greater outburst of cheering interrupted the young King, who
raised his head amid the shouts, the clapping of hands, and the
fluttering of handkerchiefs, and smiled his painful smile.
"More than that," continued the King, "I have to deplore the spread of
associations, sodalities, and clubs, which, by an erroneous conception
of liberty, are disseminating the germs of revolt against the State.
Under the most noble propositions about the moral and economical
redemption of the people is hidden a propaganda for the conquest of the
public powers.
"My aim is to gain the affection of my people, and to interest them in
the cause of order and public security, and therefore my Government will
present an urgent bill, which is intended to stop the flowering of these
parasitic organisations, by revising these laws of the press and of
public meeting, in whose defects agitators find opportunity for their
attacks on the doctrines of the State."
A prolonged outburst of applause followed this passage, mingled with a
tumult of tongues, which went on after the King had begun to read again,
rendering his last clause--an invocation of God's blessing on the
deliberations of Parliament--almost inaudible.
The end of the speech was a signal for further cheering, and when the
King left the hall, bowing as before, and smiling his painful smile, the
shouts of "Long live the King," the clapping of hands, and the waving of
handkerchiefs followed him to the street. The entire ceremony had
occupied twelve minutes.
Then the clamour of voices drowned the sound of the royal hymn outside.
Deputies were climbing about to join their friends among the ladies,
whose light laughter was to be heard on every side.
David Rossi rose to go. Without lifting his head, he had been conscious
that during the latter part of the King's speech many eyes were fixed
upon him. Playing with his watch-chain, he had struggled to look calm
and impassive. But his heart was sick, and he wished to get away
quickly.
A partition, shielding the door of the corridor, stood near to his seat,
and he was trying to get round it. He heard his name in the air around
him, mingled with significant trills and unmistakable accents. All at
once he was conscious of a perfume he knew, and of a girlish figure
facing him.
"Good-day, Honourable," said a voice that thrilled him like the strings
of a harp drawn tight.
He lifted his head and answered. It was Roma. Her face was lighted up
with a fire he had never seen before. Only one glance he dared to take,
but he could see that at the next instant those flashing eyes would
burst into tears.
The tide was passing out by the front doors where the carriages and the
reporters waited, but Rossi stepped round to the back. He was on the way
to the office of his newspaper, and dipping into the Corso from a lane
that crossed it, he came upon the King's carriage returning to the
Quirinal. It was entirely surrounded by soldiers, the military commander
of Rome on the right, the commander of the Carabineers on the left, and
the Cuirassiers, riding two deep, before and behind, so that the King
and Queen were scarcely visible to the cheering crowd. Last in the royal
procession came an ordinary cab containing two detectives in plain
clothes.
The office of the _Sunrise_ was in a narrow lane out of the Corso. It
was a dingy building of three floors, with the machine-rooms on the
ground-level, the composing-rooms at the top, and the editorial rooms
between. Rossi's office was a large apartment, with three desks, that
were intended for the editor and his day and night assistants.
His day assistant received him with many bows and compliments. He was a
small man with an insincere face.
Rossi drank a cup of coffee and settled to his work. It was an article
on the day's doings, more fearless and outspoken than he had ever
published before. Such a day as they had just gone through, with the
flying of flags and the playing of royal hymns, was not really a day of
joy and rejoicing, but of degradation and shame. If the people had known
what they were doing, they would have hung their flags with crape and
played funeral marches.
"Such a scene as we have witnessed to-day," he wrote, "like all such
scenes throughout the world, whether in Germany, Russia, and England, or
in China, Persia, and the darkest regions of Africa, is but proof of the
melancholy fact that while man, as the individual, has been nineteen
hundred years converted to Christianity, man, as the nation, remains to
this day for the most part utterly pagan."
The assistant editor, who had glanced over the pages of manuscript as
Rossi threw them aside, looked up at last and said:
"Are you sure, sir, that you wish to print this article?"
"Quite sure."
The man made a shrug of his shoulders, and took the copy upstairs.
The short day had closed in when Rossi was returning home. Screamers in
the streets were crying early editions of the evening papers, and the
cafés in the Corso were full of officers and civilians, sipping vermouth
and reading glowing accounts of the King's enthusiastic reception.
Pitiful! Most pitiful! And the man who dared to tell the truth must be
prepared for any consequences.
David Rossi told himself that he _was_ prepared. Henceforth he would
devote himself to the people, without a thought of what might happen.
Nothing should come between him and his work--nothing whatever--not
even ... but, no, he could not think of it!