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

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44 MILITARY LIFE.
either side of the way, comes the continuous sound of the
closing of shutters, the loud noise of the bars, and a slipping
of bolts into rings, and the interchange of good-nights
among the clerks who are going home. The finest shops,
gleaming and well-lighted, remain open still, their door-ways
filled with curious people; as do the book-stores, with their
tobacco-smelling literary habitue's, who sport long, untidy
locks and who gather in a corner at the back to grumble ovei
old politics and disinterred parchments and the cafes crowded
;
with customers enveloped in a cloud of smoke, from which,
at every opening of the door, there sweeps into the street in
waves a deep, full clamor of voices.
It was upon such an evening as this that my regiment,
which had arrived that morning in one of the largest
cities of
Italy, was scatterred through the streets waiting for the barracks
we were to occupy to be emptied and for the retreat to
sound.
The soldiers were still in full marching equipment, the
gaiters
buttoned over the trousers, the cartridge-box at the belt,
the flasks and knapsacks on the shoulder-straps.
Weary from
the march, their clothes and hair white with dust, they stood
still in groups on the corners, their backs against the walls,
their arms crossed on the breast, one leg resting over the other,
or motionless
before the jewellers' establishments, contemplating,
open-mouthed, those
show-windows filled with medals and
crosses of every form and color, at which old employes and
well-advanced majors cast longing glances and sighs as they
pass. Many of them were seated in the hostelries reviving
themselves with a swallow of wine ; others, less exhausted,
wandered through the streets. All, or nearly all, however,