28 March 1948, Easter Sunday. Pope Pius XII addressed the crowd as follows: 'The great hour of the Christian conscience has sounded. Either this conscience awakens to a full and virile awareness of its mission of help and salvation for a humanity perilous in its spiritual make-up; and then it is health, it is the event of the formal promise of the Redeemer: 'Have confidence, I have overcome the world' (John 16:33). Or else (God forbid) this consciousness only half awakes, does not give itself courageously to Christ, and then the verdict, terrible verdict! of Him, is no less formal: 'He who is not with me, is against me' (Matthew 12:30)." Either this way or that way. We are on the eve of the crucial 1948 elections and the Americans have just made it known that in the event of a victory for the Left they will withdraw their economic support. The Galeazzi don't seem to care too much about the political situation, the weather is fine (for now) and the magnificent Conero landscape is worth the Easter picnic.