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

THE CONSCRIPT.
IT was a Sunday, toward five o'clock in the evening, and the
weather was very beautiful. The barracks were nearly empty.
Almost all the soldiers had gone to walk about the city ;
the
few who remained, part in the dormitories dressing themselves,
part down in the court-yard waiting, were about to start off
too ;
those down below crying from time to time, " Make
haste," and those above replying, "In a moment," while perhaps
they were trying to buckle on their belts so tightly as to
give them a slender waist.
Even the conscripts, who had only
joined the regiment two days before, had gone out in part,
while the rest were on the point of leaving in sixes, eights, and
tens together, pale and serious, their caps on crookedly, their
cloaks all bunched up, their hands wide-stretched and stuck
into a pair of big white gloves that looked like those the boxers
wear ;
and the soldiers of the guard, seated on a bench at the
door of the barracks went on making remarks about them as
they passed, although the sergeant grumbled from time to
"
time : Leave those poor fellows in "
peace The officer of
!
the guard, stretched on the bed in a room on the first floor,
was glancing over a newspaper.
In the farthest corner of the court there was a conscript
all alone, seated on the steps of a door, with his elbows on his
knees and his chin on his hands. He followed his comrades