Those shorts fully deserve their name.
They are shortness itself, and their brevity is only equalled by their
tightness. One wonders how they can squeeze themselves into such an
outfit or, that feat accomplished, play in it with any sense of comfort.
Play they do, and furiously, despite the heat.
Watching the game and mindful of that morning's discourse with Madame de
Maintenon, a sudden wave of Anglo-Saxon feeling swept over me. I grew
strangely warlike, and began to snort with indignation. What were all
these young fellows doing here? Big chaps of eighteen and twenty! Half
of them ought to be in the trenches, damn it, instead of fooling about
with a ball.
It would have been instructive to learn the true ideas of the rising
generation in regard to the political outlook; to single out one of the
younger spectators and make him talk. But these better-class lads
cluster together at the approach of a stranger, and one does not want to
start a public discussion with half a dozen of them. My chance came from
another direction. It was half-time and a certain player limped out of
the field and sat down on the grass. I was beside him before his friends
had time to come up. A superb specimen, all dewy with perspiration.
"Any damage?"
Nothing much, he gasped. A man on the other side had just caught him
with the full swing of his fist under the ribs. It hurt confoundedly.
"Hardly fair play," I commented.
"It was cleverly done."
"Ah, well," I said, warming to my English character, "you may get harder
knocks in the trenches. I suppose you are nearly due?"
Not for a year or so, he replied. And even then ... of course, he was
quite eligible as to physique ... it was really rather awkward ... but
as to serving in the army ... there were other jobs going. ... Was
anything more precious than life?... Could anything replace his life to
him?... To die at his age....
"It would certainly be a pity from an artistic point of view. But if
everybody thought like that, where would the Isonzo line be?"
If everybody thought as he did, there would be no Isonzo line at all.
German influence in Italy - why not? They had been there before; it was
no dark page in Italian history. Was his own government so admirable
that one should regret its disappearance? A pack of knaves and
cutthroats. Patriotism - a phrase; auto-intoxication. They say one thing
and mean another. The English too. Yes, the English too. Purely
mercenary motives, for all their noble talk.
It is always entertaining to see ourselves as others see us. I had the
presence of mind to interject some anti-British remark, which produced
the desired effect.
