I
Roma awoke next morning with a feeling of joy. The dangers of last night
were over and David Rossi had escaped. Where would he be by this time?
She looked at her little round watch and reckoned the hours that had
passed against the speed of the train.
Natalina came with the tea and the morning newspaper. The maid's tongue
went faster than her hands as she rattled on about the terrors of the
night and the news of the morning. Meantime Roma glanced eagerly over
the columns of the paper for its references to Rossi. He was gone. The
authorities were unable to say what had become of him.
With boundless relief Roma turned to the other items of intelligence.
The journal was the organ of the Government, and it contained an extract
from the Official Gazette and the text of a proclamation by the Prefect.
The first announced that the riot was at an end and Rome was quiet; the
second notified the public that by royal decree the city was declared to
be in a state of siege, and that the King had nominated a Royal
Commissioner with full powers.
Besides this news there was a general account of the insurrection. The
ringleaders were anarchists, socialists, and professed atheists,
determined on the destruction of both throne and altar by any means,
however horrible. Their victims had been drawn, without seeing where
they were going, into a vortex of disorder, and the soldiers had
defended society and the law. Happily the casualties were few. The only
fatal incident had been the death of a child, seven years of age, the
son of a workman. The people of Rome had to congratulate themselves on
the promptness of a Government which had reinstated authority with so
small a loss of blood.
Roma remembered what Rossi had said about Elena--"Think of Elena when
she awakes in the morning, alone with her terrible grief"--and putting
on a plain dark cloth dress she set off for the Piazza Navona.
It was eleven o'clock, and the sun was shining on the melting snow. Rome
was like a dead city. The breath of revolution had passed over it.
Broken tiles lay on the pavement of the slushy streets, and here and
there were the remains of abandoned barricades. The shops, which are the
eyes of a city, were nearly all closed and asleep.
At a flower-shop, which was opened to her knock, Roma bought a wreath of
white chrysanthemums. A group of men and women stood at the door in the
Piazza Navona, and she received their kisses on her hands. The
Garibaldian followed her up the stairs, and his old wife, who stood at
the top, called her "Little Sister," and then burst into tears.