formed. He loved his niece, and he had begun to like Gianbattista.
He knew the lawyer, Carnesecchi, by reputation, and what he had heard of
him did not prejudice him in the man's favour. It would have been the
same had Marzio chosen any one else. In the priest's estimation,
Gianbattista had a right to expect the fulfilment of the many promises
which had been made to him. To break those promises for no ostensible
reason, just as Gianbattista seemed to be growing up to be a sensible
man, was an act of injustice which Don Paolo would not permit if he
could help it. Gianbattista was not, perhaps, a model man, but, by
contrast with Marzio, he seemed almost saintly. He had a good
disposition and no vices; married to Lucia and devoted to his art, much
might be expected of him. On the other hand, Gasparo Carnesecchi
represented the devil in person. He was known to be an advanced
freethinker, a radical, and, perhaps, worse than a radical--a socialist.
He was certainly not very rich, and Lucia's dowry would be an object to
him; he would doubtless spend the last copper of the money in attempting
to be elected to the Chambers. If he succeeded, he would represent
another unit in that ill-guided minority which has for its sole end the
subversion of the existing state of things. He would probably succeed in
getting back the money he had spent, and more also, by illicit means. If
he failed, the money would be lost, and he would go from bad to worse,
intriguing and mixing himself up with the despicable radical press, in
the hope of getting a hearing and a place.

There is a scale in the meaning of the word socialist. In France it
means about the same thing as a communist, when one uses plain language.
When one uses the language of Monsieur Dramont, it means a Jew. In
England a socialist is equal to a French conservative republican. In
America it means a thief. In Germany it means an ingenious individual of
restricted financial resources, who generally fails to blow up some
important personage with wet dynamite. In Italy a socialist is an
anarchist pure and simple, who wishes to destroy everything existing for
the sake of dividing a wealth which does not exist at all. It also means
a young man who orders a glass of water and a toothpick at a _cafe_, and
is able to talk politics for a considerable time on this slender
nourishment. Signor Succi and Signor Merlatti have discovered nothing
new. Their miracles of fasting may be observed by the