Rossi held his head between his hands to prevent his senses from leaving
him. His rage was ebbing away, and he was beginning to tremble.
Nevertheless, he forced himself to go on. As he rang the bell at the
Foreign Office, he was partly conscious of a secret desire that the
Prime Minister might not be there.
The porter was not sure. The Baron's carriage had just gone. Let him ask
on the telephone.... No, there had been a messenger from the Minister of
the Interior, but the Minister himself had not been there that night.
Rossi took a long breath of relief and went away. He had returned to the
bright side of the piazza when the lights seemed to be wiped out as
though by an invisible wing, and the whole city was plunged in darkness.
At the next moment a squadron of cavalry galloped up to the Quirinal,
and the gates of the royal palace and of the Consulta were closed.
Midnight struck.
For two hours the soldiers had been charging the crowds by the light of
lanterns and torches. They had arrested hundreds of persons. Chained
together, two and two, the insurgents had been taken to the places of
detention, amid the cries of their women and children. "Who knows
whether we shall see each other again?" said the prisoners, as they
passed into the "House of Pain." One old woman went on her knees to the
soldiers and begged them to have pity on the people. "They are your
brothers, my sons," she cried.
One o'clock struck.
The streets were still dark, but a searchlight from Monte Mario was
sweeping over the city like a flash of a supernatural eye. With
tottering limbs and his head on his breast, David Rossi was walking down
the Via due Macelli towards the column of the Immaculate Conception,
when a young girl spoke to him.
"Honourable," she said, "is it true that the little boy is dead?... It
is? Oh, dear! I met him in the Corso, and brought him up as far as the
Variétés, and if I had only taken him all the way.... Oh, I shall never
forgive myself!"
The city was quiet and all was hushed on every side when Rossi found
himself on a flight of steps at the back of Roma's apartment. From these
steps a door opened into the studio. One panel of the door was glazed,
and a light was shining from within. Going cautiously forward, Rossi
looked into the room. Roma was seated on a stool with her hands clasped
in her lap and her hair hanging loose. She was very pale. Her face
expressed unutterable sadness.