The little man shuffled his feet, and bowed himself out of the room,
with many apologies and praises which Roma did not hear. For all her
brave words her heart was breaking, and she was holding her breath to
repress a sob. The great bulwark she had built up for herself lay
wrecked at her feet. She had deceived herself into believing that she
could be somebody for herself. Going down to the studio, she covered up
the fountain. It had lost every quality which she had seen in it before.
Art was gone from her. She was nobody. It was very, very cruel.
But that glorious telegram rustled in her breast like a captive
song-bird, and before going to bed she wrote to David Rossi again.
"Your message arrived before I was up this morning, and not being
entirely back from the world of dreams, I fancied that it was an angel's
whisper. This is silly, but I wouldn't change it for the greatest
wisdom, if, in order to be the most wise and wonderful among women, I
had to love you less.
"Business first and other things afterwards. Most of the newspapers have
been published to-day, and some of them are blowing themselves out of
breath in abuse of you, and howling louder than the wolves of the
Capitol before rain. The military courts began this morning, and they
have already polished off fifty victims. Rewards for denunciations have
now deepened to threats of imprisonment for non-denunciation. General
Morra, Minister of War, has sent in his resignation, and there is
bracing weather in the neighbourhood of the Palazzo Braschi. An editor
has been arrested, many journals and societies have been suppressed, and
twenty thousand of the contadini who came to Rome for the meeting in the
Coliseum have been despatched to their own communes. Finally, the Royal
Commissioner has written to the Pope, calling on him to assist in the
work of pacifying the people, and it is rumoured that the Holy Office is
to be petitioned by certain of the Bishops to denounce the 'Republic of
Man' as a secret society (like the Freemasons) coming within the ban of
the Pontifical constitutions.
"So much for general news, and now for more personal intelligence. I
went down to the Castle of St. Angelo this morning, and was permitted to
speak to the Royal Commissioner. Recognised him instantly as a regular
old-timer at the heels of the Baron, and tackled him on our ancient
terms. The wretch--he squints, and he smoked a cigarette all through the
interview--couldn't allow me to see Bruno during the private preparation
of the case against him, and when I asked if the instruction would take
long he said, 'Probably, as it is complicated by the case of some one
else who is not yet in custody.' Then I asked if I might employ separate
counsel for the defence, and he shuffled and said it was unnecessary.
This decided me, and I walked straight to the office of the great lawyer
Napoleon Fuselli, promised him five hundred francs by to-morrow morning,
and told him to go ahead without delay.