"Could n't you hire 'a man like Willis' to extract them from your scarlet cushions? Potentates have grand viziers. Mr. Willes would make a delicious grand vizier," she reflected, with a kind of wistfulness.
"He would indeed," said Anthony. "And we should have comic opera again with interest."
"But you only look at it from a selfish point of view," said Susanna.
"Think of poor Sampaolo—under the old régime, an Island of the
Blessed."
"Seriously, is there at Sampaolo, the faintest sentiment in favour of a return to the old régime?" he asked.
"Seriously, and more 's the pity, not the faintest," Susanna confessed. "I believe I am the only legitimist in the island—save a few priests and nuns, and they don't count. I am the entire legitimist party."
She turned towards him, making a little bow.
"Yet there is every manner of discontent with the present régime," she said. "The taxes, the conscription, the difficulties put in the way of commerce, the monstrous number of officials, and the corruption of them one and all, are felt and hated by everyone. Under the old régime, for example," she illustrated, "Vallanza was a free port,—now we have to pay both a national duty and a municipal duty on exports as well as imports; nothing was taxed but land, and that very lightly—now nearly everything is taxed, even salt, even a working-man's tools, even a peasant's necessary donkey, so that out of every lira earned the government takes from forty to sixty centimes; the fisheries of Sampaolo, which are very valuable, were reserved for the Sampaolesi,—now they are open to all Italy, and Sampaolo, an island, cannot compete with Ancona, on the railway. In Sampaolo to-day, if you have any public business to transact, from taking out a dog license to seeking justice in the law-courts, every official you have to deal with, including the judges, expects his buonamano. If you post a letter, it is an even chance whether the Post-Office young men won't destroy the letter and steal the stamps; while, if you go to the Post-Office to buy stamps, it is highly possible that they will playfully sell you forged ones."
She gave a bitter little laugh.
"The present Prefect of Sampaolo," she continued her illustrations, "formerly kept a disreputable public house, a sailors' tavern, at Ancona. He is known to be a Camorrista; and though his salary is only a few thousand lire, he lives with the ostentation of a parvenu millionaire, and no one doubts where he gets his money. These evils are felt by everyone. But the worst evil of all is the condition of the Church. In the old days the Sampaolesi were noted for their piety; now, even in modern irreligious Italy, you would seek far to unearth a people so flagrantly irreligious. From high to low the men are atheists; and the few men who are not, have to be very careful how they show it. It is as much as a tradesman's trade is worth, as much as an employe's place is worth, to go to Mass; the one will sit behind a deserted counter, the other will learn that his services are no longer needed. The present régime is liked by no one save the officials who benefit by it; but it tickles the vanity of the Sampaolesi to call themselves citizens of a Great Power; and so, though many are republicans, many socialists, none are legitimists. They would prefer any burden to the burden of insignificance; and under the reign of the Valdeschi, though free, prosperous, and happy, Sampaolo was insignificant."
"You paint a very sad state of things," said Anthony.