o develop by
educational means the immense lost force which now stagnates in ignorance
and idleness. Yes, yes, Italy is made, but let us make an Italian nation.
And give us more and more books, and let us ever go more and more forward
into science and into light, if we wish to live and to be healthy, good,
and strong!"

With his torso erect, with his powerful leonine muzzle flaming with the
white brightness of his beard and hair, old Orlando looked superb. And in
that simple, candid chamber, so touching with its intentional poverty, he
raised his cry of hope with such intensity of feverish faith, that before
the young priest's eyes there arose another figure--that of Cardinal
Boccanera, erect and black save for his snow-white hair, and likewise
glowing with heroic beauty in his crumbling palace whose gilded ceilings
threatened to fall about his head! Ah! the magnificent stubborn men of
the past, the believers, the old men who still show themselves more
virile, more ardent than the young! Those two represented the opposite
poles of belief; they had not an idea, an affection in common, and in
that ancient city of Rome, where all was being blown away in dust, they
alone seemed to protest, indestructible, face to face like two parted
brothers, standing motionless on either horizon. And to have seen them
thus, one after the other, so great and grand, so lonely, so detached
from ordinary life, was to fill one's day with a dream of eternity.

Luigi, however, had taken hold of the old man's hands to calm him by an
affectionate filial clasp. "Yes, yes, you are right, father, always
right, and I'm a fool to contradict you. Now, pray don't move about like
that, for you are uncovering yourself, and your legs will get cold
again."

So saying, he knelt down and very carefully arranged the wrapper; and
then remaining on the floor like a child, albeit he was two and forty, he
raised his moist eyes, full of mute, entreating worship towards the old
man who, calmed and deeply moved, caressed his hair with a trembling
touch.

Pierre had been there for nearly two hours, when he at last took leave,
greatly struck and affected by all that he had seen and heard. And again
he had to promise that he would return and have a long chat with Orlando.
Once out of doors he walked along at random. It was barely four o'clock,
and it was his idea to ramble in this wise, without any predetermined
programme, through Rome at that delightful hour when th