(3 of 6)
So the young men who had been idling in the square bent their backs and started to work. In a week they had made 50 yards of a great wide road. The next week they did 100. At the end of each week they were told that the government had not yet sent funds. Finally the day came when they threw down their picks. They were willing to work for nothing, but they had no funds to buy material to build a bridge over a ditch. Today sheep feed on Arsoli's road to Cervara and funds have not yet arrived.
Arsoli people no longer believe that Demo-Christian and Christian are synonymous. The Communists had failed them after Fascism had cheated them. The priests' party was clearly no good. Where could they turn now?
Travail of a Prince. In their trouble they turned where they would have turned in the Middle Ages: to the local overlords, the Massimo family. Its present representative is curly-headed, witty young Prince Vittorio Massimo. When Hannibal wiped out the Roman armies in Apulia at the Battle of Cannae, the Romans entrusted their fortunes to one Fabius Maximus, later known as Cunctator—the Delayer, because he made Hannibal chase him around Italy for eight years. He was Vittorio's ancestor. Now that the Arsolians brought him their troubles, Vittorio realized that something just as bad as Hannibal was at Arsoli's gates.
Tossing on his canopied bed in his crenelated castle, Prince Vittorio spent sleepless nights, sweating with worry. Later he said that he worked out this argument: "If we live in a capitalist world, that land is ours because it has belonged to my family and Arsoli for generations. If we live in a Christian state and the capital takes water from us, it should at least not let us starve." The young prince remembered that his family includes two Popes—St. Anastasius (died 401) who denounced the Origenist heresy, and St. Pasquale (died 824) who stood up to the Frankish kings. Clearly it was up to Vittorio to act for Arsoli.
He decided that his duty to Arsolians lay with that party whose avowed program was to spur Demo-Christians to speed up reform: Giuseppe Saragat's anti-Communist Socialists. Within a few days he had founded a local Socialist Party section. Arsolians rushed to join. Socialism gave them the right to call Vittorio "Comrade," rather than "Excellency." So ingrained is their respect for the Massimos, however, that many compromised (as Socialists will) and called Vittorio Compagno Eccellenza—Comrade Excellency.
Vittorio had a party; he needed a program. His youthful mind thought out a youthful solution: Arsoli would build a sports ground which would provide: 1) immediate employment; 2) an interest for Arsoli youth; 3) revenue, if teams and spectators from other towns came there to play.
Even the Boy Scouts. When Vittorio announced his scheme in the tiny local headquarters of the Saragat Socialists, Comrade Vittorio Proietti almost banged his head on a low-hanging lamp as he jumped up to embrace Vittorio. Twice he embraced him, crying: "Comrade Excellency, Comrade Excellency, we shall win over to Socialism all of Arsoli's youth." Then an idea struck Proietti; he burst into long peals of laughter: "Why, we may even get Catholic Boy Scouts to turn Socialist."