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

3IO
MILITARY LIFE.
more together
. . . I am glad that you are so gay, and at
the same time . . . this gaiety of yours hurts me, because
. . . I think that I shall feel all the more painfully the void
and silence which will fill this house before long."
" It is true," I thought. Poor women " "
!
Courage
!
courage !
we
I
say to them, we who go to the war full of enthusiasm, ambition,
with dreams of glory, gay, thoughtless, and surrounded by
friends ;
but they remain here alone without comfort or distraction,
always with that thought, that fixed pain.
" I understand, I feel that in these days I am nothing to
you.
. . ." added my mother.
" No, no, let me finish, I
do not complain of it, you know ! Poor boy,
it is natural .
. . but . . ."
"
Listen," I said to comfort her ;
"
you have so noble and
choice a heart, you can find comfort in yourself much more
easily than other women. We are not selfish. Do you think
this war ought to take place
? that it is just
? that it is a solemn
duty of the "
country ?
" Oh, yes, that I admit," she replied, as she wiped her eyes.
" Then if we do not make it, we, the adult generation, our
children will be obliged to do so afterward. If there were not
now five hundred thousand mothers who are weeping, there
would be that number within twenty years. We sacrifice ourselves
to our country for the five
hundred thousand boys and
girls who are still in leading-strings ; they have in each other
their predestined lovers and wives, shall we not then assure their
future, as far as within us lies, from every pain or sorrow, and
so act that they may love, marry, and multiply in peace " ?
My mother smiled, but instantly became sad again.
" All
"
this is true," she said, with a sigh, but it is not enough to console
a mother
"
!