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

DEPARTURE AND RETURN. 31 1
Then leaning her elbows on a table and burying her face in
her hands, she wept silently. I tried to console her.
" No,
my son ; go out, go and hunt up your friends, I do not wish to
sadden you ;
let me weep alone ; go."
It was evening ;
she stayed in the dark in a corner of the
room, alone and silent ;
thinking and thinking.
I have never experienced as I did in those days the marvellous
power of imagination over sentiment. I began sometimes,
in an idle way, to fancy all possible cases of the war,
and then little by little I concentrated my thoughts and buried
myself so completely in the imagination of the battles, triumphal
entries, and returns, that I really seemed to be present,
to feel, and to see ; my blood was stirred, I clasped my head in
my hands, for it seemed as if it would burst, so great was the
tumult of ideas, and my chest was heaving, and I was filled
with all sorts of childish impulses.
One night I was on guard at the Madama Palace ;
alone in
my room, seated at a table, with the light in front of me, and
giving rein to my fancies, I imagined that I had risen to such
a height that I could take in with a single glance the entire
country mountains, valleys, rivers, forests, and I felt and saw
all the streets in the city filled with people, the parade grounds
gleaming with bayonets, and from the fortresses, arsenals, and
doors came a confused sound of arms and songs, and the
dull
noise of a hurried, feverish labor. On the railways were interminable,
heavy, slow trains, running over the country
in all
directions, meeting, crossing, following each other, greeted with
joy by the people who had gathered. Here and there they
stopped to discharge a load of cannon, horses, wagons, and
piles of arms. Suddenly a loud sound of drums and trum-