Veronica wondered how any people could be poorer than these, and her face grew still more sad.  She tried to speak to the children, but they could not understand her.  She got some little coins from her purse, but they were too much frightened to come forward and take them.  They were not afraid of the priest, however, and Don Teodoro got out of the carriage and put the money into their horrible little hands, and they ran away with strange small cries and wild, half-noiseless laughter—­if laughter can be anything but noisy.  Let such words pass as come; for no words of our tongue can quite tell all Veronica saw and heard on that day.  The great Italian myth survives in foreign nations; it has even more life, perhaps, in Italy itself, north of the Roman line; but only those know what Italy is, who have trudged on foot, and ridden by mountain paths, and driven by southern highways, through hill and valley and mountain and plain, from house to house, where there are neither inns nor taverns, throughout that vast region which is the half of the whole country, or more, and where the abomination of desolation reigns supreme in broad day.

That Italy has done what she has done in thirty years, to be a power among nations, is a marvel, a wonder, and almost a miracle.  That she should have done it at all, is the greatest mistake ever committed by a civilized nation, and it is irrevocable, as its results are to be fatal and lasting.  But upon the good reality of unity, the deadly dream of military greatness descended as a killing blight, and the evil vision of political power has blasted the common sense of a whole people.  It is one thing to be one, as a united family, each working for the good of each and all; it is another thing, and a worse thing, to be one as a vast and idle army, sitting down to besiege its own storehouses, each eating something of the whole and doing nothing to increase that whole, till all is gone, and the vision fades in the awakening from the dream, leaving the bare nakedness of desolation to tell the story of a huge mistake.

Even Veronica’s strong horses were well nigh tired out when they reached the dismal solitude of the high pass above Laviano; and she herself was wearied and faint with the gloom, and the poverty, and the barrenness of so much that was hers.  But her mouth was set and firm, and she meant that something should be done before many days, which should begin a vast and lasting change.  She did not know what she was undertaking, nor how far she might be led in the attempt to do good against great odds of evil on all sides; but she was not discouraged, and she had no intention of drawing back.

It was a very long day.  As the hours wore on, the three ate something from time to time, from a basket of provisions which Elettra had brought, and at which Veronica had laughed.  But the air of the mountains was keen, and there was not too much in the basket, after all.