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

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MILITAR Y LIFE.
out the kettles with the remains of the soup. Then there was
a bustle, and such a shouting that it could not be quieted even
by force.
They were so hungry that they could not stand, and
each one wished to be first to put his spoon into the broth ;
they all sprang together at the kettles, dashed their soup plates
in by tens, pushing and repelling each other, shrieking like madmen,
women, old men, children, altogether ;
all with thin
faces, wearing expressions that were half bitter,
half insensate,
which aroused at that moment both fear and pity ; they
were dirty, ragged, half nude, and in a state which excited the
greatest repugnance. At such moments the soldiers allowed
them to do as they chose, nor could I pretend to hold them to
their duty, save in cases where they were inclined to hurt
some one ;
but hardly had the confusion ceased, when we
called the women and children (who generally got nothing) apart,
one by one,
and gave them something to eat, keeping back the
others who crowded around and began to beg again. This
was an every-day occurrence. I say nothing
of the soldiers
who were stopped at every moment in the streets by entire
families of beggars, surrounded and persecuted, so that they
were obliged to remain in the barracks, and content themselves
by walking in the court-yard. Yet they preferred remaining in
that place where the poor left them no peace, rather than in
the others where they fled from them for fear of being poisoned ;
in fact, they took a sort of satisfaction in being implored and
persecuted, in seeing themselves made, in a measure,
the slaves
of those poor people a satisfaction which arises from pity
when one is able to express and exercise it with benefit. And
those good soldiers did feel pity, and they exercised their
benevolence with the best heart in the world. Not only did