The qualities and defects of the Italian nation all existed in the Pandolfi family.  Marzio possessed more imagination than most of his countrymen, and he had, besides, that extraordinary skill in his manual execution of his work, which Italians have often exhibited on a large scale.  On the other hand, he was full of bombastic talk about principles which he called great.  His views concerning society, government, and the future of his country, were entirely without balance, and betrayed an amazing ignorance of the laws which, direct the destinies of mankind.  He suffered in a remarkable degree from that mental disease which afflicts Italians—­the worship of the fetish—­of words which mean little, and are supposed to mean much, of names in history which have been exalted by the rhetoric of demagogues from the obscurity to which they had been wisely consigned by the judgment of scholars.  He was alternately weak and despotic, cunning about small things which concerned his own fortunes, and amazingly foolish about the set of ideas which he loosely defined as politics.

Lucia’s nature illustrated another phase of the Italian character, and one which, if it is less remarkable, is much more agreeable.  She possessed the character which looks at everything from the point of view of daily life.  Without imagination, she regarded only the practical side of existence.  Her vanity was confined to a modest wish to make the best of her appearance, while her ambition went no further than the strictest possibility, in the shape of a marriage with Gianbattista Bordogni, and a simple little apartment with a terrace and pots of pinks.  Had she known how much richer her father was than she suspected him of being, the enlargement of her views for the future would have been marked by a descent, from the fourth story of the house which was to be her imaginary home, to the third story.  It could never have entered her head that Gianbattista ought to give up his profession until he was too old to work any longer.  In her estimation, the mere possession of money could not justify a change of social position.  She had been accustomed from her childhood to hear her father air his views in regard to the world in general, but his preaching had produced but little impression upon her.  When he thought she was listening in profound attention to his discourse, she was usually wishing that he could be made to see the absurdity of his theories.  She wished also that he would sacrifice some of his enthusiasm for the sake of a little more quiet in the house, for she saw that his talking distressed her mother.  Further than this she cared little what he said, and not at all for what he thought.  Her mind was generally occupied with the one subject which absorbed her thoughts, and which had grown to be by far the most important part of her nature, her love for Gianbattista Bordogni.