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

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MILITARY LIFE.
glances which provoke, search, flee
away amiably astute, meet
amiably audacious, and betwixt the fascination of the soft
abandonment and pleasure of the dance, they languish, flush,
beseech, refuse, promise, punish, grant, and carry one off to
Heaven.
And he is there, I thought, poor sqldier ! He
is there, exposed
to the cold, to the snow, alone, silent, sad, without comfort,
and without hope. Up there they are playing, dancing,
laughing, frolicking, enjoying life's wildest and most charming
intoxications ;
and he, from that darkness and that solitude, is
obliged to hear the gaiety going on above his head, and compare
it with the sad abandonment, and the weary melancholy
of his poor heart. He is obliged to submit to the imageries of
those dear faces, beautiful persons, and glances ; he, who is
alone, far away from his own, who has no woman's face smiling
on him, no little hand to press but
; who, perchance, to his
greater sorrow, will always have fixed in his memory a black
braid and two modest eyes that once made his soul tremble
with love ! Ah
!
in the midst of those hyacinths and flowerdecked
heads he dreams of her, and sees those dear tresses,
without " "
gems, and without flowers ! Corporal
!
" "
Present !
" Who 's the soldier in the sentinel-box ? "
" Such and such a one."
" You may go." My heart told me that it was a conscript.
Poor conscript
! He has only been in the regiment for a few
days, and is still bewildered by this new life his head and his
;
heart are still at home with his mother, among the quiet habits
of his former life the ; thought of return does not even pass
through his head, or, if it does, it is only a thought of a very