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

DEPARTURE AND RETURN. 347
watched over you as
a child, then when you went to school,
and I wept if you returned with the 'I think,' and I did it for
you, striving to imitate your writing and I looked
; (not being
able to do any thing else), and bathed with my tears the Latin
Anthology, when you did not succeed in
discouraged over Then it.
translating, and grew
I remembered the years when you
were at college, the time when you were so gay, so happy
here, that evening when I heard that music which nearly
broke my heart, and I curled myself in a corner of my room,
stopping my ears with my hands.
The fear of losing you from
one moment to the other made my having a son named Alberto
almost seem like a dream ! It seemed as if
only a few months
had elapsed since the first
day I saw you At evening, when
!
your sister had gone to sleep, and I remained alone in these
rooms, I fell upon my knees, look, beside that bed, and prayed
to God as I had never prayed before, and offered
Him my life
a hundred times over for the preservation of yours, uttering
your name a hundred times aloud, as if
you were present to
hear me, until my strength failed ;
I felt a weight on my chest,
and it seemed as if I should die. . . . But you are here, you are
safe, you are mine I can look
; at, speak to, embrace you, and
press this dear head to my breast. Oh ! it seems like a dream !
it seems impossible
! Tell me that you are really here, Alberto
;
tell me that you are listening to me, and see me weeping.
. . ."
I fell on my knees before her.
"
My son, what are you doing ? Rise ! "
"
But, dear mother, what are you saying
? Listen to me : if
I have suffered, was it not for you, because I love you. Was
I tired or thirsty ? I
thought how that poor woman would