'Conquer her!'
Tullio Giustini made a sweeping gesture towards the city with his skinny hand.
'Conquer her! Woe to the commonplace, woe to the cowards, woe to the weak, like myself! This city does not expect you, and does not fear you; it gives you no welcome, does not reject you; it does not oppose you, and disdains to accept a challenge. Its strength, its power, its loftiness, is lodged in an almost divine attribute—indifference. You may make a stir—howl, rave, set fire to your house and your books, and dance on the ruins—Rome will take no note of it. It is the city to which all have come, and where all have fallen: why should it be concerned with you, an infinitesimal atom, passing across the scene so quickly? It is indifferent; it is the great cosmopolitan city which has this universal character, which knows everything because it has seen everything. Indifference is the equivalent of the unchangeably serene, the deaf soul, the woman who knows not how to love. Indifference is the moral mid-winter sirocco, the tepid, uniform temperature which debilitates the nervous system, and saps the will-power, and causes tremendous internal revolutions and tremendous dejections. Yet someone must come to disturb that serenity, to vanquish that indifference. Someone must conquer Rome, whether for ten years, for one year, for one month; but he must conquer it, must capture it, must avenge all the dead, all the fallen, all the feeble who have touched its walls without being able to overcome it. But, ah! such a one must have a heart of brass, an inflexible, rigid will; he must be young, healthy, robust, and bold, without ties and without weaknesses; he must apply himself profoundly, intensely to that one idea of victory. But who is to conquer her, this proud Rome?'
'I will!' said Francesco Sangiorgio.
PART II
CHAPTER I
The Minister had been speaking for an hour. He was no orator: he lacked fire and polish. Rather was he a modest speaker, one who did not strive after effects in political eloquence, and who said things concisely, in the logical, mathematical order in which they presented themselves to a square, solid brain. The discourse, as was natural, bristled with figures, was an interminable procession of numbers. He uttered them with a certain deliberation, as if he wanted them weighed by friends and foes. His voice was too gentle, too familiar, perhaps, but was plainly audible in the silence. He might have been taking part in a Cabinet Council; the Parliamentary pitch of voice was altogether absent. The Minister stopped occasionally to wipe his nose on a large silk handkerchief, checked in red and black. As a matter of fact, in that short, stout little person plainly dressed in black, in that placid face, shaved on the lips and chin, but flanked with whiskers at the side in English fashion, in those plump, white hands, in the whole atmosphere of repose and thoughtfulness which he exhaled, one might divine the indefatigable workman of the study, the man who spent twelve hours a day at the Ministerial offices, behind a desk covered with documents—writing, reading, verifying registers, advising with heads of departments, with general directors. Thus, the Minister, the man of meditation, seemed out of place in debate with the members; and in announcing the most important facts, in rendering matters exact and profound, he spoke with the easy simplicity of a scientist setting forth his vast learning in popular language.
The Chamber sat still out of respect, but as a fact the members were inattentive. They were so sure of him and his adherents! He was strong, he was such an iron, massive, luminous tower of strength that the anger of political slander or debate left him unmoved. His very adversaries admitted his power, and thus contributed to render his triumphs all the more sweeping. By listening to him intently one might succeed in understanding how he stood outside the political passion, and was all absorbed in his love of finance.