can draw as plentifully as one pleases. It is such another inexhaustible
reservoir that I wish to see created among us. And one must begin at the
bottom. There must be schools everywhere, ignorance must be stamped out,
brutishness and idleness must be fought with books, intellectual and
moral instruction must give us the industrious people which we need if we
are not to disappear from among the great nations. And once again for
whom, if not for the democracy of to-morrow, have we worked in taking
possession of Rome? And how easily one can understand that all should
collapse here, and nothing grow up vigorously since such a democracy is
absolutely absent. Yes, yes, the solution of the problem does not lie
elsewhere; we must make a people, make an Italian democracy."

Pierre had grown calm again, feeling somewhat anxious yet not daring to
say that it is by no means easy to modify a nation, that Italy is such as
soil, history, and race have made her, and that to seek to transform her
so radically and all at once might be a dangerous enterprise. Do not
nations like beings have an active youth, a resplendent prime, and a more
or less prolonged old age ending in death? A modern democratic Rome, good
heavens! The modern Romes are named Paris, London, Chicago. So he
contented himself with saying: "But pending this great renovation of the
people, don't you think that you ought to be prudent? Your finances are
in such a bad condition, you are passing through such great social and
economic difficulties, that you run the risk of the worst catastrophes
before you secure either men or money. Ah! how prudent would that
minister be who should say in your Chamber: 'Our pride has made a
mistake, it was wrong of us to try to make ourselves a great nation in
one day; more time, labour, and patience are needed; and we consent to
remain for the present a young nation, which will quietly reflect and
labour at self-formation, without, for a long time yet, seeking to play a
dominant part. So we intend to disarm, to strike out the war and naval
estimates, all the estimates intended for display abroad, in order to
devote ourselves to our internal prosperity, and to build up by
education, physically and morally, the great nation which we swear we
will be fifty years hence!' Yes, yes, strike out all needless
expenditure, your salvation lies in that!"

But Orlando, while listening, had become gloomy again, and with a vague,
weary gesture he replie