lack confidence."

Then, as Pierre on his side was growing impassioned and sought to reply,
he stopped him: "No, let me finish. I only want to convince you how
absolutely necessary it was that we should take Rome and make her the
capital of Italy. Without Rome new Italy could not have existed; Rome
represented the glory of ancient time; in her dust lay the sovereign
power which we wished to re-establish; she brought strength, beauty,
eternity to those who possessed her. Standing in the middle of our
country, she was its heart, and must assuredly become its life as soon as
she should be awakened from the long sleep of ruin. Ah! how we desired
her, amidst victory and amidst defeat, through years and years of
frightful impatience! For my part I loved her, and longed for her, far
more than for any woman, with my blood burning, and in despair that I
should be growing old. And when we possessed her, our folly was a desire
to behold her huge, magnificent, and commanding all at once, the equal of
the other great capitals of Europe--Berlin, Paris, and London. Look at
her! she is still my only love, my only consolation now that I am
virtually dead, with nothing alive in me but my eyes."

With the same gesture as before, he directed Pierre's attention to the
window. Under the glowing sky Rome stretched out in its immensity,
empurpled and gilded by the slanting sunrays. Across the horizon, far,
far away, the trees of the Janiculum stretched a green girdle, of a
limpid emerald hue, whilst the dome of St. Peter's, more to the left,
showed palely blue, like a sapphire bedimmed by too bright a light. Then
came the low town, the old ruddy city, baked as it were by centuries of
burning summers, soft to the eye and beautiful with the deep life of the
past, an unbounded chaos of roofs, gables, towers, /campanili/, and
cupolas. But, in the foreground under the window, there was the new