In Mazzini's imagination, the people of Rome should have been full of vigor by now. Golden light should have blanketed the streets, flowers should have danced through the air, and the sounds of strings and flutes should have flowed without end. There should have been no pain, no sorrow.
His mistress, Madame Sang, and his adopted daughter, Idali, had likewise held high hopes for Rome. But the vast gulf between expectation and reality had doused them with a bucket of cold water.
Hunger and despair hung over Rome like a dark cloud that refused to lift. People sat or lay about aimlessly, like heaps of mud.
This was nothing like the way Mazzini had described things along the way. In truth, he was hardly to blame. At first, he had thought 1848 was an ordinary year, with little more than a few extra famines.
When gunfire rang out on Sicily, Mazzini still didn't think the world would change much.
But the world changed far faster than he could have imagined. That insignificant spark had taken less than a month to set the whole European continent ablaze.
Everything had caught him off guard. At first, Pius IX had been the very man they wanted to overthrow, but soon he had become the leader of the Italian people, launching a holy war to reclaim their lost lands.
This actually fit Mazzini's ideals perfectly. He believed the Pope was the best person to carry that banner. He had even written to the Pope himself before, though he had never received a reply.
When Mazzini heard that the Pope had personally pardoned him and his followers, he immediately shook off British surveillance and decided to return home at once.
But while he was still aboard the ship, he received news that Pius IX had