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58 pages, Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1911
The tram-car employees in Naples were on strike:
The strikers huddled gloomily together, barely replying to the irritable outcries of the crowd; some of them climbed on to the railing of the park peering anxiously down the street over the heads of the people, like a pack of wolves surrounded by the hounds. It was clear that these people in their uniformed attire were closely linked by an unshakable resolve to stand their ground, and this irritated the crowd still more.
The city is as colourful as the richly embroidered robe of a priest. Its passionate cries, groans and exclamations ring out like a paean to life. Every city is a temple raised by the labours of man, all labour is a prayer to the Future.
The sun is at its zenith and a blinding heat pours down from the blue sky as if every sun ray falling upon earth and sea were a fiery sword thrust into stone and water. The water is like shining silk thickly sewn with silver, its warm green waves lap the shore and it murmurs its gentle hymn to the source of life and happiness – the sun.
“Hear me!” said she. “Whatever thou hast done, thou art but a man. I am a Mother! Thou servest death, I serve life. Thou hast sinned against me and so I have come to demand that thou atone for thy guilt. I have been told that thy device is ‘in justice lies strength,’ I do not believe it, but to me thou must be just, for I am a Mother!”
And so they wander about the globe, moving from place to place like sightless birds, staring with dull, joyless eyes at everything and seeing nothing anywhere but themselves.