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

A NOCTURNAL MARCH. 139
bending under him his
; head, raised by force, falls again heavily
on his chest, and his arms hang inert and powerless. His mind,
little by little, wanders ideas ; grow confused, and melt curiously
into one another. To his eyes veiled by sleep, the soldiers who
are walking before and beside him stagger confusedly along ;
and the trees and houses on either side of the way, (whose dark
outlines are scarcely discernible) present strange, shapeless,
wonderful aspects to him. .
Sometimes he still follows with his
eyes the walls of a house when they have already been left behind,
or he seems to see a house or clump of
trees where there
are none. At another moment, there suddenly appears before
him, right in the middle of the road, directly in his path, a
great obstacle, a large black thing, which he cannot make out,
but he sees it ;
there it is, right there, and he is just
about to
hit it with his head ;
he stops, stretches out his arm, shakes it
nothing there was nothing ;
so on he goes. Thirty, fifty, a
hundred steps, then he begins to dose again. This time he
dreams. He seems to be walking alone, in some unknown direction,
or to be in another place, far from there, perhaps at home,
among other people, in the daytime.
. . .
Suddenly, the
sound of the foot-falls of those around him strikes his ear ;
he
becomes aware of the clinking of the canteens ;
wakes, glances
around, comes to himself, yawns, falls into step, and, shortly
afterward, the whole thing begins again. With his head on
his chest, one hand in his pocket, the other on the handle of
his sword, he goes on, leaning on it, in unequal paces and
springs, tottering, winding along, three steps here, four there,
five, six, a stumble into the knapsack
of a soldier. He
starts, wakes, looks around with staring eyes, comes to himself
again, is ashamed of himself, shakes his head as if out of pity