faults, you
certainly have faults as well. And, come, family quarrels can't last for
ever!"

"No doubt," Pierre answered in some embarrassment. "Unfortunately they
are the most tenacious. In families, when blood becomes exasperated with
blood, hate goes as far as poison and the knife. And pardon becomes
impossible."

He dared not fully express his thoughts. Since he had been in Rome,
listening, and considering things, the quarrel between Italy and France
had resumed itself in his mind in a fine tragic story. Once upon a time
there were two princesses, daughters of a powerful queen, the mistress of
the world. The elder one, who had inherited her mother's kingdom, was
secretly grieved to see her sister, who had established herself in a
neighbouring land, gradually increase in wealth, strength, and
brilliancy, whilst she herself declined as if weakened by age,
dismembered, so exhausted, and so sore, that she already felt defeated on
the day when she attempted a supreme effort to regain universal power.
And so how bitter were her feelings, how hurt she always felt on seeing
her sister recover from the most frightful shocks, resume her dazzling
_gala_, and continue to reign over the world by dint of strength and
grace and wit. Never would she forgive it, however well that envied and
detested sister might act towards her. Therein lay an incurable wound,
the life of one poisoned by that of the other, the hatred of old blood
for young blood, which could only be quieted by death. And even if peace,
as was possible, should soon be restored between them in presence of the
younger sister's evident triumph, the other would always harbour deep
within her heart an endless grief at being the elder yet the vassal.

"However, you may rely on me," Pierre affectionately resumed. "This
quarrel between the two countries is certainly a great source of grief
and a great peril. And assuredly I will only say what I think to be the
truth about you. At the same time I fear that you hardly like the truth,
for temperament and custom have hardly prepared you for it. The poets of
every nation who at various times have written on Rome have intoxicated
you with so much praise that you are scarcely fitted to hear the real
truth about your Rome of to-day. No matter how superb a share of praise
one may accord you, one must all the same look at the reality of things,
and this reality is just what you won't admit, lovers of the beautiful as
you ever are,