The fever within the vast auditorium seemed to bear out the girl’s words. Here was no “rabble of the piazza,” to repeat the German ambassador’s sneer, but well-to-do Roman citizens. For three hours they shouted their hatred of Teuton, sang patriotic hymns, cried defiance of the politician Giolitti, who would keep the nation safely bound in its old alliance. “Fuori i barbari!... Giolitti traditore!” One grizzled Roman hurled in my ears: “I’ll drink his blood, the traitor!”
When the little poet entered his flower-wreathed box every one cheered and waved to him. He stood looking down on the passionate human sea beneath him, then slowly plucked the red flowers from a great bunch of carnations that some one handed him and threw them one by one far out into the cheering throng. One floated downward straight into Bianca’s eager hand. She snatched it, kissed the flower, and looked upward into the poet’s smiling face....
He recited the suppressed stanzas of a war-poem, the slow, rhythmic lines falling like the red flowers into eager hearts. The signora was standing on her seat beside Bianca, clasping her arm, and tears gathered slowly in her large, wistful eyes, tears of pride and sadness.... Out in the still night once more from that storm of passion we walked on silently through empty streets. “He believes it—he is right,” the signora sighed. “Italy also must do her part!”
“Of course,” Bianca said quickly, “and she will!... See there!”
The girl pointed to a heap of stones freshly upturned in the street. It was the first barricade.
“Our soldiers must not fight each other,” she said gravely, and glanced again over her shoulder at the barricade....
In front of Santa Maria the tired cavalry sat their horses, and a double line of infantry was drawn across the Via Cavour before the Giolitti home. The boys were slouching over their rifles; evidently, whatever play there had been in this picket duty had gone out of it. Suddenly Bianca and her mother ran down the line. “Maironi, Maironi!” I heard some of the soldiers calling softly, and there was a shuffle in the ranks. Enrico was shoved forward to the front in comradely fashion. Mother and sister chatted with the boy, and presently Bianca came dashing back.
“They haven’t had anything to eat all day!”
We found a café still open and loaded ourselves with rolls, chocolate, and cigarettes, which Bianca distributed to the weary soldiers while the young lieutenant tactfully strolled to the other end of the line.
“To think of keeping them here all day without food!” the signora grumbled as we turned away. The boys, shoving their gifts into pockets and mouths, straightened up as their officer came back down the line. “They might as well be at war,” the signora continued.