w, as I looked at
the boys, I could almost have said that the stones she threw had not
missed their mark, and were deep in their hearts still.

How the grandmother had hated them! Had they given her no special cause
for this hatred? Assuredly they had, for hate breeds hate, and strife
strife. But how did it begin? I was not with them at the time, but it
was not difficult to understand the origin of it all.

She had been left a widow early in life, this old lady; and all the
interest and sympathy she gained by her comeliness and charm she tried
to turn into a source of profit for herself and her two sons, the elder
of whom was now lying here in his coffin. They were the only beings on
earth she loved, and love them she did with a passionate frenzy of
which the lads themselves eventually grew weary. Then, too, when they
understood the species of cunning that lay in the use she made of her
opportunities as a fascinating young widow, to gain material advantages
for her sons, they began to feel a certain contempt for her. And so
they turned from her, and threw all their energies into the ideas of
Italian freedom and Italian unity which they had acquired from young
and ardent companions. Their mother's narrow and frantic absorption in
her own personal interests and affections made them only the more
anxious to sacrifice everything for the common welfare.

In force of character, these boys not merely equalled their mother, but
excelled her. Thus there arose a bitter struggle, in which in the end
she succumbed; but not until the young men's connections with the
secret associations had procured for them a circle of acquaintance that
extended far beyond the town and the society to which her family
belonged. Each of them brought home a bride from a household of a
higher social standing than their mother's, with a trousseau better
than hers had been, and a dowry which, as she was bound to acknowledge,
was respectable. This silenced her for awhile; it was clear that the
business of playing the patriot had its advantages.

But the time came when both sons were forced to flee; when the elder
was taken and imprisoned; when the most atrocious public extortion was
practised; and when ruffianly officials regarded the defenceless widows
as their prey. Their house had to be mortgaged, and then first one and
then the other of their two vineyards; and finally one of their fields
was seized by the mortgagees. And thus it came about that the