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The English lady really wanted to put a wreath on the Garibaldi monument on the 30th of April.

She had her reasons for this.

For one thing, there wasn't going to be any ceremony at all this year.

There were a few reasons for that, too: Garibaldi had been taken up and exploited by the Communists nowadays.

Therefore the government wanted no part of him.

( It is sort of as if our government should decide to disown Washington or Lincoln for the same reason.

) And then there were ecclesiastical matters, the matter of Garibaldi's anti-clericalism.

There was a new Pope and the Vatican was making itself heard and felt these days.

As it happens the English lady is a good Catholic herself, but of more liberal political persuasion.

Nothing was going to be done this year to celebrate Garibaldi's bold and unsuccessful defense of Rome.

All that the English lady wanted to do was to walk up to the monument and lay a wreath at its base.

This would show that somebody, even a foreigner living in Rome, cared.

And then there were other things.

Some of the marble busts in the park are of young Englishmen who fought and died for Garibaldi.

She also mentioned leaving a little bunch of flowers at the bust of Lauro Di Bosis.