In Italian monasteries dawn found monks who had been praying all night that Christianity would prevail on this day. Two hours before the polls opened, a bent, solitary woman, carrying a camp chair for the long wait, crossed Rome's vast, deserted Piazza del Popolo; the garish posters, remnants of one of the world's most momentous election campaigns, proclaimed their slogans like demagogues before an empty hall.
Over the Ponte Fabricio to Tiberina Island moved a long file of brown Franciscan nuns, the rustling of their robes lost in the rushing Tiber below. Soon solitary groups swelled into crowds; the tide...
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