Your fathers and mine were there in the fighting, but
we do not know their names, and I trust and hope yours spared the
altars as carefully as mine did.
The road began to climb the hill, and though the heat increased - for
in Italy long before nine it is glaring noon to us northerners (and
that reminds me: your fathers and mine, to whom allusion has been made
above {as they say in the dull history books - [LECTOR. How many more
interior brackets are we to have? Is this algebra? AUCTOR. You
yourself, Lector, are responsible for the worst.]} your fathers and
mine coming down into this country to fight, as was their annual
custom, must have had a plaguy time of it, when you think that they
could not get across the Alps till summer-time, and then had to hack
and hew, and thrust and dig, and slash and climb, and charge and puff,
and blow and swear, and parry and receive, and aim and dodge, and butt
and run for their lives at the end, under an unaccustomed sun. No
wonder they saw visions, the dear people! They are dead now, and we do
not even know their names.) - Where was I?
LECTOR. You were at the uninteresting remark that the heat was
increasing.
AUCTOR. Precisely. I remember. Well, the heat was increasing, but it
seemed far more bearable than it had been in the earlier places; in
the oven of the Garfagnana or in the deserts of Siena.
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