Although the feudal system did not disappear until around thirty years after unification, feudalism and a more modern rule of law would still be open to interpretation. Legal scholar and philosopher Dennis Patterson concisely points out that there are two dominant opposing camps: those who hold that the interpretation of law is solely objective and those who view it in terms of subjectivity (671). Assuming that the passions at the time of Sicily's turbulent unification rested more on subjectivity than objectivity, it becomes understandable that Don Fabrizio was caught in a historical trajectory that he had not chosen. Unification established a new order as well as a convoluted manner by which the law was executed. The new professional magistrate was generally composed of former Sicilian nobles who sided with financial interests and did not care about the notion of "blind justice". (Lupo 34) This was left to the police or gendarmerie, who were seemingly incapable of maneuvering among a range of divergent groups, factions, bandits and promines....