The slack limbs moved; the body rose and fell.

The cost of the effort was the breaking out of innumerable wounds, old and new; the gain was the display of the miracle that Italy lived.
She tasted her own blood, and herself knew that she lived.
Then she felt her chains.

The time was coming for her to prove, by the virtues within her, that she was worthy to live, when others of her sons, subtle and adept, intricate as serpents, bold, unquestioning as well-bestridden steeds, should grapple and play deep for her in the game of worldly strife.

Now--at this hour of which I speak--when Austrians marched like a merry flame down Milan streets, and Italians stood like the burnt-out cinders of the fire-grate, Italy's faint wrist was still in the clutch of her grave leech, who counted the beating of her pulse between long pauses, that would have made another think life to be heaving its last, not beginning.
The Piazza d'Armi was empty of its glittering show..