Military life in Italy : sketches - Societa italiana di storia militare

THE SON OF THE REGIMENT. 79
to our faces for a moment when he was questioned.
His eyes
were still swollen and red from his severe fit of weeping ;
his
voice trembled ;
and he did not know how to move or where to
hold his hands, so embarrassed and confused was he. By
dint
of questioning him and urging him to talk, we succeeded in
loosening his tongue and drawing from him some more particulars
about his family. Then little
by little he took courage
and warmed in his narration, comforted by the signs of
assent
and compassion that we constantly gave to his words.
" She is not my true mother," he said; "that is why she
does not love me.
The other was my true mother, and is dead,
but she loved me very much ;
the one I have now ... is
the same as if I were not in the house ;
she gives me food to
eat and a place to sleep, but never looks at me as if I had
done something wrong ;
and I don't do any one any harm ;
The neighbors in the house
every one can say that. . . .
all like me better than she. . . . The other two boys are
smaller than I, and there is no danger of her making them
!
cry Then she never took me to walk with the other two.
They are always well dressed, while I seem like a beggar.
. . . Sometimes she left me shut up in the house, all
alone, those Sunday evenings when you see so many people
pass in the street, and I stayed at the window waiting for
them to return, but they never came back, and I used to go
to sleep with my head on the window. Then when they did
return she scolded me alone in
;
the
I had been shut up
house, and they had gone to the theatre or cafe", and the
other two boys came and whispered in my ear '
We : went,
and you did not ' then
; they made gestures to provoke me,
and if I cried, they laughed at me, *uid mother never said