Her waking to consciousness is like that of one who has been drowned, and who finds the return to life agony.

Before her eyes, seen even through the mists of slumber, are the ruin and the shame of Italy.

Opposite lies Night, so sorrowful, so utterly absorbed in darkness and the shade of death, that to shake off that everlasting lethargy seems impossible.

Yet she is not dead.

If we raise our voices, she too will stretch her limbs, and, like her sister, shudder into sensibility with sighs.