The man hesitated before obeying.
Weary of politics, and obeying a natural inclination to pleasure, Julius then virtually abdicated the management of affairs, and gave himself up to enjoyment, amusing himself with the adornment of his villa, near the Porta del Popolo, and often so far forgetting the proprieties of his office as to participate in entertainments of a questionable character.
Pierre, perplexed, looked round with his shortsighted eyes without obeying, and suddenly doubts arose in his mind.
When, in course of time, the extended suffrage increased the Republican and Extreme Radical elements in the Chamber, and the Liberal Pentarchy (composed of Crispi, Cairoli, Nicotera, Zanardelli and Baccarini) assumed an attitude of bitter hostility to Depretis, the Right, obeying the impulse of Minghetti, rallied openly to Depretis, lending him aid without which his prolonged term of office would have been impossible.
Thus on the face of it there is something like a return to the self-sufficient utterance of antique religion; but, in reality, there is all the difference in the world between a suggestion directed outwardly in the fruitless attempt to conjure nature without first obeying her, and one directed towards the inner man so as to establish the peace of God within the heart.