I leaned in the bright sunshine over the parapet of this terrace,
looking at Artena near-by. It resembled, now, a cluster of brown grapes
clinging to the hillside. An elderly man, clean-shaven, with scarred and
sallow face, drew nigh and, perceiving the direction of my glance,
remarked gravely:
"Artena."
"Artena," I repeated.
He extracted half a toscano cigar from his waistcoat pocket, and began
to smoke with great gusto. A man of means, I concluded, to be able to
smoke at this hour of an ordinary week-day. He was warmly dressed, with
flowing brown tie and opulent vest and corduroy trousers. His feet were
encased in rough riding-boots. Some peasant proprietor, very likely, who
rode his own horses. Was he going to tell me anything of interest about
Artena? Presumably not. He said never another word, but continued to
smile at me rather wearily. I tried to enliven the conversation by
pointing to a different spot on the hills and observing:
"Segni."
"Segni," he agreed.
His cigar had gone out, as toscanos are apt to do. He applied a match,
and suddenly remarked:
"Velletri."
"Velletri."
We were not making much progress. A good many sites were visible from
here, and at this rate of enumeration the sun might well set on our
labours.
"How about all those deserters?" I inquired.
There was a fair number of them, he said. Young fellows from other
provinces who find their way hither across country, God knows how. It
was a good soil for deserters - brushwood, deep gullies, lonely stretches
of land, and, above all, la tradizione. The tradition, he explained, of
that ill-famed forest of Velletri, now extirpated. The deserters were
nearly all children - the latest conscripts; a grown man seldom deserts,
not because he would not like to do so, but because he has more
"judgment" and can weigh the risks. The roads were patrolled by police.
A few murders had taken place; yes, just a few murders; one or two
stupid people who resented their demands for money or food -
He broke off with another weary smile.
"You have had malaria," I suggested.
"Often."
The fact was patent, not only from his sallow face, but from the
peculiar manner....
They brought in a deserter that very afternoon. He lay groaning at the
bottom of a cab, having broken his leg in jumping down from somewhere.
The rest of the conveyance was filled to overflowing with carbineers. A
Sicilian, they said. The whole populace followed the vehicle uphill,
reverently, as though attending a funeral. "He is little," said a woman,
referring either to his size or his age.
An hour later there was a discussion anent the episode in the
fashionable cafe of Valmontone. A citizen, a well-dressed man, possibly
a notary, put the case for United Italy, for intervention against
Germany, for military discipline and the shooting of cowardly deserters,
into a few phrases so clear, so convincing, that there was a general
burst of approval.
