It would bring the troops to their senses and cause them to
march home and say:
Basta! We have had enough."
"Don't you find the Germans a little prepotenti?" "Prepotenti: yes. By
all means let us break their heads. And then, caro Lei, let us learn to
imitate them...."
That afternoon, I remember, being wondrously fine and myself in such
mellow mood that I would have shared my last crust with some shipwrecked
archduchess and almost forgiven mine enemies, though not until I had hit
them back - I strolled about the Cascine. They have done something to
make this place attractive; just then, at all events, the shortcomings
were unobserved amid the burst of green things overhead and underfoot.
Originally it must have been an unpromising stretch of land, running, as
it does, in a dead level along the Arno. Yet there is earth and water;
and a good deal can be done with such materials to diversify the
surface. More might have been accomplished here. For in the matter of
hill and dale and lake, and variety of vegetation, the Cascine are not
remarkable. One calls to mind what has been attained at Kew Gardens in
an identical situation, and with far less sunshine for the landscape
gardener to play with. One thinks of a certain town in Germany where, on
a plain as flat as a billiard table, they actually reared a mountain,
now covered with houses and timber, for the disport of the citizens.
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