133/138 Never will you come to Rome as Geddie expects, late in the spring, to take an apartment close to her, looking charmingly on the river. I told her quite frankly that you would not be so unwise. Rome is empty of foreigners this year, a few Americans standing for all. Then, in the midst of the quiet, deeply does the passion work: on one side, with the people, on the other in the despair and rage of the Papal Government. The Pope can't go out to breakfast, to drink chocolate and talk about 'Divine things' to the 'Christian youth,' but he stumbles upon the term 'new ideas,' and, falling precipitately into a fury, neither evangelical nor angelical, calls Napoleon a _sicario_ (cut-throat), and Vittorio Emanuele an _assassino_. |