The only one of the household who thought differently was the son, a lad
of twenty, just re-reading his Roman history, and boiling over with
excitement. To mention Rome before him was to declare battle, and in one
of these conflicts feeling had run so high that it had been unanimously
decided not to touch upon the subject in future.

One evening, early in September, one of the official newspapers
announced that the Italian troops had actually entered the Papal States.
The son was bursting with joy. The father read the article, sat thinking
awhile, and then, shaking his head, muttered: "No!" and again: "No!" and
a third time: "No!"

"But I beg your pardon, father!" shouted the boy, all aflame.

"Don't let us begin again," the mother gently interposed; and that
evening nothing more was said. But the next night something serious
happened. The lad, just before going to bed, announced, without
preamble, as though he were saying the most natural thing in the world,
that he meant to go to Rome with the army.

There was a general outcry of surprise and indignation, followed by a
storm of reproaches and threats. No decent person would willingly be
present at such scenes as were about to be enacted; it was enough that,
as Italians, they were all in a measure to blame for what had happened,
without deliberately assuming the shame of being an eye-witness; there
was nothing one could not forgive in a lad of good family, except (it
was his mother who spoke) this craze to go and see A POOR OLD MAN
BOMBARDED. A fine war! A glorious triumph, indeed!