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

CARMELA.
I.
THE affair which I am going to relate occurred in a small
island, about seventy miles from Sicily.
On the island there is
only one town, numbering not more than two thousand inhabitants,
in which, however, there were, at the time my story begins,
three or four hundred prisoners condemned to hard labor,
and on their account, there was stationed there a detachment
of
about forty soldiers (commanded by a subaltern), who were
changed every three months. The soldiers led a very agreeable
life, especially for these two reasons :
that, aside from the
guard at the barracks and prison, some reconnoitring in the
interior of the island, and a little drill now and then, they had
nothing to do ;
and the wine, which was delicious, cost only
four sous a bottle. I say nothing of the officer, who enjoyed
the largest liberty, and had the power of saying : " I am commander-in-chief
of all the military forces of the country." He
had at his disposal two gendarmes in the quality of employes at
the office of the command in the square, a beautiful
apartment
furnished gratuitously in the centre of the town ; passed his
mornings hunting in the mountains, the afternoons in a little
reading-room with the principal personages of the place, and
the evenings in a boat on the sea, smoking excellent cigars at
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