This incident, however, gave me the opportunity to measure how many Italians were following my affairs. I got almost a plebiscite of warm sympathy from all over the land. I rested, suffering, for some days, and then I took up my usual activity at the Popolo d’Italia, knowing that Italy no longer disregarded the part I was to play.
On the day of the carnage at the Diana and of the consequent reprisals, while spirits were kindled and irritated, a certain Masi, sent by the anarchists of Piombino, came to Milan to attempt my life. He presented himself at my house, rang the bell and boldly climbed the stairs. He was a strange creature of extraordinary mien. My daughter Edda went to open the door.
The unknown man asked for me. He was sent to the Popolo d’Italia, but went below and waited for me on the large public square of Foro Bonaparte. When he saw me he came toward me at first rapidly, and then slowly he wavered. He asked me in a halting voice if I was Professor Mussolini, and when I said I was he added that he wanted to speak to me at some length.
The strange behavior of the individual with the grim eye made me understand that I found myself in the presence of a madman. I said that I did not give audience in the street; I told him that I received at the Popolo d’Italia, where in fact he came half an hour later, asking to be introduced to me. I consented at once and willingly. Masi—who, I repeat, was a young man with burning eyes—as soon as he came into my presence appeared embarrassed. He said he wanted to speak to me. His behavior was so curious that I asked him to tell me promptly and sympathetically what he wanted to say.
After a moment of hesitation he told me that he had been chosen by lot, in a drawing by the anarchists of Piombino, to murder me treacherously with a Berretta pistol. Later, having been caught in some doubts, he had resolved to come and confess everything to me, to hand me the weapon with which he had intended to kill me and to put himself at my mercy. I listened to him, but I said not a word.
Taking the revolver from his hands, I called the chief clerk and telephone operator of the newspaper, Sant’ Elia, and intrusted to him that unhappy man, so ensnared by anarchy and frightened by the consequences of his dreams. I wanted Sant’ Elia to accompany him to Triest, with a letter of introduction to the Fascist Giunta. Soon afterward, however, the police—informed by what means I know not of the episode—arrested the anarchist of Piombino as he went away. This was the one clever piece of detective work performed at that time by the Milan police. They had utterly failed to trace out the dynamiters of the Diana even two months after the crime.
Oh, many had meditated upon my funeral! And yet love is stronger than hatred. I always felt a power over events and over men.
Giolitti in those days was in a most difficult parliamentary situation. On the political horizon there had appeared a political constellation of first magnitude—it was Fascism. Facing this fact, the president of the council of that epoch deemed it opportune to measure the parties on the basis of parliamentary suffrage, and he announced the elections for the month of May.
After a preliminary discussion the various parties which were pledged to order, in opposition to Socialist communism, found it expedient to go into the elections as a body, which could be defined as a national bloc.
In the centre of the bloc—the only motivating and encouraging force—was Fascism. All other parties kept their complexions as subverters in political and economic matters. The Socialist party presented itself separated from the Communist party, while the Popular party, which always claimed an inspiration of ecclesiastical, religious character, moved on the field alone, leaning heavily upon the political influence of the country vicars.