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

33 6 MILITAR Y LIF1-:.
to-morrow I return to my regiment. That 's all. I wished to write you
when it was all over, so as to prevent you from coming here, as I knew you
would be sure to do. Now you can get angry, cry, write, protest
;
it 's all
the same; it is over; and you must be resigned. Do as I wish, dear
mother ;
lhank God that it has only been the fever ;
think of the poor young
fellows whom I have around me ; some wounded by balls, some by bayonets,
condemcd to stay in bed who knows how many more months, and fortunate are
they who will ever Le able to rise again. I have before me a lieutenant in
the grenadiers, a Lombardian, who had received a bayonet wound in his
chest, at Custoza, from a sergeant of the Croats, yet despite his wound he
did not wish to leave the field. lie showed me his coat, still stained with
blood. He is almost well, gets up, walks, but when he wakes, the motion
he makes in sitting up in bed causes him intense pain. He related the
affair to me : "I remember very little," he said, "I remember as if in a
dream having seen four or five horribly distorted faces running toward us,
uttering a prolonged shout, and one of them looked at me. I shall always
have before me those two staring eyes and the point of the bayonet he was
;
a tall, black man, with a huge moustache. I do not recollect how he succeeded
in wounding me. I remember that a young, beardless Austrian officer,
with an effeminate face, passed before me, waving his sword, and
'
shouting desperately Jesus Maria ! Jesus Maria ! He '
: passed and
disappeared. Him I always see and should easily recognize. Several days
later, being in (he hospital with the fever and delirium, cars were filled
by those shouts and the sound of the clashing muskets, and in
my
the distance
I saw a gleaming point come slowly forward in the direction of my heart, as
if it were looking at me in order to recognize me. Then I
suddenly
felt it,
cold and hard, entering my flesh, staying there for some time, and then going
farther down. It will seem odd to you ; but for many days, at every
sudden noise I heard, the beating of the blinds or the falling of a chair. I
felt a shudder run through my* entire frame . . ." This poor fellow, despite
his wound, jumped out of his bed in his shirt the other night and came and
asked me if I needed any thing, because he fancied that he heard me groan.
I tvas mortified. The idea of a simple fever patient being the cause of a
wounded man's putting himself out for him ! From that night forward, at
every noise he made, if he were only snoring, I jumped up and went to him.
The headquarters of the army are at Padua, you know. Yesterday, while I
was dosing, I saw a breast covered with medals and crosses gleaming before
me ;
I looked ; it was the executioner. He remained an hour. I began talking
about the war ;
he let the conversation drop, and never smiled, for he was
very sad. He left me with several warm pressures of the hand, saying, as
"
he did so, most gravely
: "Be strong
!