A murmur of approval ran along some of the benches. The closest attention of all was paid where the four vigorous young Centrists were sitting, Seymour, Gerini, Joanna, and Marchetti, who nevertheless made no demonstrations, with that British impassiveness of the young economist deputies.
'In the small towns and boroughs and villages of the South of Italy,' Sangiorgio went on, 'the bakers always make two kinds of bread—tasteless and cheap for the poor people, and salted for the well-to-do. And to this second kind the bakers often give its flavour, not with salt, because it is too dear, but by passing a cloth steeped in sea-water over the fresh dough. In the houses of the poor a coarse, dark, heavy-grained salt is used, which ought only to be sold for cattle, but which human beings are obliged to buy for themselves. By increasing the duty the Government would condemn a whole class of taxpayers to intolerable privations, whose consequence would be ravage by sickness and yet deeper destitution. The millions spent on national defence, on the fortifications of the country, on the army, are wisely allotted, but is it necessary to be powerful when one is so poor? When the Minister of War calls the young men of the Basilicata to arms, and hopes to find a body of stalwart and valiant mountaineers, he will be disappointed at seeing a herd of creatures pale and emaciated from illness, weakness, and dejection. Or, rather, not even that, for the barren and unfruitful provinces are becoming more and more depopulated; the peasant, desperate over the sterility of the soil, harried by the fisc, abandoned by Nature, persecuted by man, prefers to turn his back upon the land of his birth and leave it for the remote shores of America. The peasant prefers a foreign people, a foreign clime, whence there is no return. When the war-trumpet shall call the Italian sons of the Basilicata there will be no answer. Driven by hunger and despair, they will have gone away to die in regions far from home!'
The Honourable Francesco Sangiorgio stepped back to his bench and resumed his seat. Cheers and applause sounded upon his ears, but only vaguely. He was conscious of the buzz of discussion which follows upon every important speech. Immediately in front of him had collected a group of deputies who were arguing somewhat loudly, referring now and then to their honourable colleague, Sangiorgio, and half turning towards him, as if seeking endorsement from him. Remaining stolidly in his place, with eyes downcast, and without anyone coming to shake hands with him because he was unknown, Sangiorgio nevertheless felt the approbation of the whole House rise to him where he sat on the topmost bench. He had given satisfaction to the old party of the Right, whose political pride was flattered; to the Extreme Left, who thought to have discovered a Socialist in a deputy belonging to the Centre; to all the egoistic and sentimental members, ready to cry misfortune at all times without seeking for remedies; to all deputies with economist leanings and shadowy notions of agrarian Socialism. This speech, which on another occasion would have passed for some literary effusion, to-day bore a character of great importance.
* * * * *
Once a minute the glass door of the room on the ground-floor at No. 9, Via della Missione, opened to admit a newcomer. Those already in the room, seated on the little divans or standing about, would turn and eye such a one angrily; a cold blast of wind would come in with him. Whoever entered, shaking and shivering, made straight for the long desk dividing the room, took a small blank, and wrote on it his own name, as well as the deputy's he wished to see; and, like him, there were always five or six others writing on small blanks. On the other side of the desk the ushers, in uniform, with medals on their chest, with a tricoloured band on their arm, gray or bald-headed, were moving to and fro, taking away those blanks, half a dozen at a time, disappearing through a door opening upon corridors giving access to the hall. Satisfied with having despatched his request, its sender would begin to walk up and down, or, if he happened to have been standing, would take a seat, without impatience, even with a somewhat presumptuous air of certainty.
The sacred door opened, and an usher reappeared with several blanks in hand; everybody looked up and lent ear.
'Who asked for the Honourable Parodi?' shouted the usher.
'I,' answered a voice from among the number of people waiting.
'He is not there.'
'Did you look carefully?' urgently asked the voice, belonging to an old man with a florid, red nose, with heavy, purple lips.