And here are some, moving slowly, and so pale, so emaciated, that I hardly know them.  Ah me!  The surgeon’s knife has probed those splendid statuesque limbs, once bared with such boyish pride on the banks of the Panaro; the surgeon’s knife, seeking for German bullets, while the blood streamed and the amputated limbs dropped from the poor maimed trunks.  Alas, poor friends!  But at least they have remained with us, rewarded for their sacrifice by the love and gratitude of all.

But what’s become of so-and-so?

He died on the march through Lombardy.

And so-and-so?

Killed by a mitrailleuse at Monte Croce.

And my friend so-and-so?

He died of a rifle-bullet, in the hospital at Verona.

And the fellow who sat next to me in class?

He died of cholera in Sicily.

Enough—­enough!

So they all pass by, fading into the distance, while my fancy hastens back over the road they have travelled, seeking traces of their passage —­how many and what diverse traces!

Here, books and papers scattered on the floor, half-finished projects of battles, an overturned table, a smoking candle-end, tokens of a studious vigil.  There, broken chairs, fragments of glasses, the remains of a carouse.  Farther on, an expanse of waste ground, two bloody swords, deep footprints, the impress of a fallen body.  Here, a table covered with a torn green cloth and strewn with cards and dice; yonder, in the grass, a scented love-letter and a knot of faded violets.  Over there a graveyard cross, with the inscription:  To my Mother.  And farther on more cards, cast-off uniforms, women’s portraits, tailors’ bills, bills of exchange, swords, flowers, blood.  What a vast tapestry one can weave with those few broken and tangled threads!  What loves, what griefs, what struggles, follies, and disasters one divines and comprehends!  Many a high and generous impulse too; but how much more of squandered opportunity and effort!

And even if nothing had been squandered, if, in those six years, not a day, not an hour, had been stolen from our work, if we had not opened our hearts to any affections but those that exalt the mind and give serenity to life, a great and dear illusion must still have been lost to us; an illusion that in vanishing has taken with it much of our strength and hope; the illusion of that distant rose-colored horizon, edged with the black profiles of gigantic mountains, legion after legion hurling itself upon the enemy with flying banners and the sound of martial music!

A lost war.

And if we had not lost that illusion, would not some other have vanished in its place?

VI.

I think of myself and say:  “How far it is from nineteen to twenty-five!”

Wherever I went, then, I was the youngest, since boys under nineteen don’t mix on equal terms with men; and I knew that whoever I met envied me three things:  my youth, my hopes, and my light-heartedness.  And now, wherever I go, I meet young fellows who look at me and speak to me with the deference shown to an elder brother; and, as I talk to them, I am conscious of making an effort to appear as cheery as they, and even find myself wondering what stuff they are made of.