Produced by Nicole Apostola, Juliet Sutherland, Charles
Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
A GREAT DAY ……… by EDMONDO DE AMICIS
PEREAT ROCHUS ……. by ANTONIO FOGAZZARO
SAN PANTALEONE …… by GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO
IT SNOWS ………… by ENRICO CASTELNUOVO
COLLEGE FRIENDS ….. by EDMONDO DE AMICIS
A GREAT DAY ………………….. Edmondo de Amicis
PEREAT ROCHUS ………………… Antonio Fogazzaro
SAN PANTALEONE ……………….. Gabriele d'Annunzio
IT SNOWS …………………….. Enrico Castelnuovo
COLLEGE FRIENDS ………………. Edmondo de Amicis
The Translation by Edith Wharton.
The G—s were living in the country, near Florence, when the Italianarmy began preparations to advance upon Rome. In the family theenterprise was regarded with disapproval. The father, the mother, andthe two grown daughters, all ardent Catholics and temperate patriots,talked of moral measures.
"We don't profess to understand anything about politics," Signora G——would say to her friends; "I am especially ignorant; in fact, I amafraid I should find it rather difficult to explain WHY I think as Ido. But I can't help it; I have a presentiment. There is somethinginside me that keeps saying: 'This is not the right way for them to goto Rome; they ought not to go, they must not go!' I remember how thingswere in forty-eight, and in fifty-nine and sixty; well, in those days Inever was frightened, I never had the feeling of anxiety that I havenow; I always thought that things would come right in the end. But now,you may say what you please, I see nothing but darkness ahead. You maylaugh as much as you like… pray heaven we don't have to cry one ofthese days! I don't believe that day is so far off."
The only one of the household who thought differently was the son, alad of twenty, just re-reading his Roman history, and boiling over withexcitement. To mention Rome before him was to declare battle, and inone of these conflicts feeling had run so high that it had beenunanimously decided not to touch upon the subject in future.
One evening, early in September, one of the official newspapersannounced that the Italian troops had actually entered the PapalStates. The son was bursting with joy. The father read the article, satthinking awhile, and then, shaking his head, muttered: "No!" and again:"No!" and a third time: "No!"
"But I beg your pardon, father!" shouted the boy, all aflame.
"Don't let us begin again," the mother gently interposed; and thatevening nothing more was said. But the next night something serioushappened. The lad, just before going to bed, announced, withoutpreamble, as though he were saying the most natural thing in the world,that he meant to go to Rome with the army.
There was a general outcry of surprise and indignation, followed by astorm of reproaches and threats. No decent person would willingly bepresent at such scenes as were about to be enacted; it was enough that,as Italians, they were all in a measure to blame for what had happened,without deliberately assuming the shame of being an eye-witness; therewas nothing one could not forgive in a lad of good family, except (itwas his mother who spoke) this craze to go and see A