It was of no use to get angry; that wouldn't alter matters.

So the best was to live as one could without increasing one's worry.

As for socialists--well, yes, perhaps there were a few, but he didn't know any.

And his weary, indifferent manner made it quite clear that, if his father was for the Pope and his uncle for the Republic, he himself was for nothing at all.
In this Pierre divined the end of a nation, or rather the slumber of a nation in which democracy has not yet awakened.

However, as the priest continued, asking Tito his age, what school he had attended, and in what district he had been born, the young man suddenly cut the questions short by pointing with one finger to his breast and saying gravely, "_Io son' Romano di Roma_." And, indeed, did not that answer everything?
"I am a Roman of Rome." Pierre smiled sadly and spoke no further.