There was the memory of the frightful day that he had just spent, the tragic death of Dario and Benedetta, which weighed on him like lead; there were all the sufferings that he had experienced since his arrival in Rome, the destruction of his illusions, the wounds dealt to his delicacy, the buffets with which men and things had responded to his young enthusiasm; and, lying yet more deeply within his heart, there was the sum total of human wretchedness, the thought of famished ones howling for food, of mothers whose breasts were drained and who sobbed whilst kissing their hungry babes, of fathers without work, who clenched their fists and revolted--indeed, the whole of that hateful misery which is as old as mankind itself, which has preyed upon mankind since its earliest hour, and which he now had everywhere found increasing in horror and havoc, without a gleam of hope that it would ever be healed.

And withal, yet more immense and more incurable, he felt within him a nameless sorrow to which he could assign no precise cause or name--an universal, an illimitable sorrow with which he melted despairingly, and which was perhaps the very sorrow of life.
"O Holy Father!" he exclaimed, "I myself have no existence and my book has no existence.

I desired, passionately desired to see your Holiness that I might explain and defend myself.

But I no longer know, I can no longer recall a single one of the things that I wished to say, I can only weep, weep the tears which are stifling me.

Yes, I am but a poor man, and the only need I feel is to speak to you of the poor.