That night Roma wrote the first part of a letter to David Rossi:
"David--my David! It is early days to call you by a dearer name,
but the sweet word is on the tip of my pen, and I can hardly help
myself from scribbling it. You wished me to tell you what is
happening in Rome, and here I am beginning to write already,
though when and how and where this letter is to reach you, I must
leave it to Fate and to yourself to determine. Fancy! Only
eighteen hours since we parted! It seems inconceivable! I feel as
if I had lived a lifetime.
"Do you know, I did not go to bed when you left me. I had so many
things to think about. And, tired as I was, I slept little, and
was up early. The morning dawned beautifully. It was perfectly
tragic. So bright and sunny after that night of slaughter. No
rattle of cars, no tinkle of trams, no calls of the water-carriers
and of the pedlars in the streets. It was for all the world like
that awful quiet of the sea the morning after a tempest, with the
sun on its placid surface and not a hint of the wrecks beneath.
"I remembered what you said about Elena, and went down to see her.
The poor girl has just parted with her dead child. She did it with
a brave heart, God pity her! taking comfort in the Blessed Virgin,
as the mother in heaven who knows all our sorrows and asks God to
heal them. Ah, what a sweet thing it must be to believe that! Do
you believe it?"
Here she wanted to say something about her great secret. She
tried, but she could not do it.
"I couldn't see Bruno to-day, but I hope to do so to-morrow, and
meantime I have ordered food to be supplied to him. If I could
only do something to some purpose! But five hundred of your
friends are in Regina C[oe]li, and my poor little efforts are a drop
of water in a mighty ocean.
"Rome is a deserted city to-day, and but for the soldiers, who are
everywhere, it would look like a dead one! The steps of the Piazza
di Spagna are empty, not a model is to be seen, not a flower is to
be bought, and the fountain is bubbling in silence. After sunset a
certain shiver passes over the world, and after an insurrection
something of the same kind seems to pass over a city. The churches
and the hospitals are the only places open, and the doctors and
their messengers are the only people moving about.
"Just one of the newspapers has been published to-day, and it is
full of proclamations. Everybody is to be indoors by nine o'clock
and the cafés are to be closed at eight. Arms are to be consigned
at the Questura, and meetings of more than four persons are
strictly forbidden. Rewards of pardon are offered to all rioters
who will inform on the ringleaders of the insurrection, and of
money to all citizens who will denounce the conspirators. The
military tribunals are to sit to-morrow and domiciliary
visitations are already being made. Your own apartments have been
searched and sealed and the police have carried off papers.
"Such are the doings of this evil day, and yet--selfish woman that
I am--I cannot for my life think it is all evil. Has it not given
me you? And if it has taken you away from me as well, I can wait,
I can be patient. Where are you now, I wonder? And are you
thinking of me while I am thinking of you? Oh, how splendid! Think
of it! Though the train may be carrying you away from me every
hour and every minute, before long we shall be together. In the
first dream of the first sleep I shall join you, and we shall be
cheek to cheek and heart to heart. Good-night, my dear one!"
Again she tried to say something about her secret. But no! "Not
to-night," she thought, and after switching off the light and kissing
her hand in the darkness to the stars that hung over the north, she
laughed at her own foolishness and went to bed.