A treble hedge of ladies, and then a multitude of black coats, on which the light dresses stood out like splashes of colour: a vivid, undulating crowd, disported itself under the gildings of the regal ceiling.
“Oh! it’s lovely, Caterina,” said Lucia, flushed with excitement. At that moment there came from the staircase a suppressed sound of applause. A flutter stirred the whole assembly as it turned to face the Prime Minister, who entered, leaning on the arm of his friend, the Member for Caserta. He was lame on the one leg that had been wounded in battle; he stooped slightly. His massive head was covered with thick iron-grey locks, well planted on a square brow: the head of a faithful watch-dog, with bold, honest eyes, wide nostrils and a firm jaw. The grey moustache covered a mouth of almost infantile sweetness, to which the impériale lent a certain meditative seriousness. He bowed, taking evident pleasure in the prolonged applause, one of the few pleasures of official life; then ascended the platform, and after once more responding to the ovation, seated himself in its centre.
“He is a brave man: he has fought in every battle; he comes of a family of heroes,” explained Lucia to Caterina.
Then came the chorus of coughing, throat-scraping, and clearing of voices which precedes all speeches. Next to the Premier was seated the Member for Sora, a white-haired veteran whose chin was fringed with a white beard, a financier of somewhat furtive expression of countenance. On the left sat the Member for Capua, cool, composed, and distinguished-looking as ever. Two empty places. The Member for Caserta mingled with the crowd. The Prime Minister raised his voice to speak, amid breathless silence.
To tell the truth, the collar of his uniform came up too high at the back of his neck and gave him an appearance of awkwardness. He leant forward while he spoke, gazing fixedly at one point in the Hall, losing himself and his words from sheer absence of mind, and occasionally indulging in long pauses that passed for oratorical effects, but were probably due to the same cause. He pointed one hand on the table, while the right described a vague circular gesture, as if he were setting a clock.
“He is unwinding the thread of his eloquence,” quoth Lucia, with much emotion.
He expressed himself poetically, here and there falling into the rhetorical, ready-made phrases which strike so pleasantly on the ear of an attentive crowd. “Yes, he was indeed happy to put aside for a moment the cares of State and the burden of politics, to be present at this festival of labour—of labour that, despite its humility, is so ennobling to the horny hand of the peasant....”
No effect. The Hall was filled with well-dressed landowners, who did not appreciate this sentimentalism.
“Besides,” he continued, “this festival assumes an historic character. The Romans, ladies and gentlemen, our great ancestors, who were gifted with the very poetry of diction, named this province the Campania Felice....”
Here the assembly, moved by the music of his words, broke into thunders of applause. The journalists scribbled in their note-books, supporting them with an air of infinite importance either on their knees or against the wall.