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

THE CAMP. 225
ing with their fingers to the different details of the great
picture, giggling at the shouts of the singers, pitying the prisoners,
and breaking out into exclamations of
surprise in seeing
some jump, and commiserating with a " Poor fellow, he must
have hurt himself," those who have fallen. Then they comment
upon the structure of the tents and the divisions of the
camp, and explain to one another the difference of grade,
judging from the bands on the caps, constantly interrupting,
and growing quite provoked at each other. At all points of
the road where there are two or three, or a group of young
and pretty peasant girls, there is
correspondingly in the camp,
right on the opposite bank of the ditch, an unusual gathering
of
soldiers, who, like all men when they know women are looking
at them, make gestures, assume attitudes, and study their
slightest movements, with a careful indifference, an indescribable
air of liveliness and effrontery, that is really entertaining ;
and the peasants laugh and laugh, cover their faces with their
hands, hide behind each other, or scatter and group themselves
again, still laughing, whispering mysterious
other's ears, and sometimes caressing
words in each
one another, just for the
pleasure (the coquettes !) of seeing their admirers envy them
those demonstrations of affection, and make them bite their
fingers from pure rage.
At one point of the road a band of young ladies, from
the neighboring villas, has appeared, in scant, airy, white,
rose-colored, blue, and very light dresses, which so fly about
at the slightest breath of wind, that they are obliged to
place
a little hand on them and stand still for a moment to
keep them in place.
Those young ladies are bare-headed, and
that light breeze stirs and disarranges their shining ringlets,