But year by year rings out reveille
Every dawn till kingdom come.
“Then comes the second verse, which begins:
This-a-way and that-a-way
“What?” asked the General.
“‘This-a-way and that-a-way,’ just that, Most Serene Excellency.”
“And what does ‘This-a-way and that-a-way’ mean?”
“I don’t know, Most Serene Excellency, but that is what they sing.”
“Well, and then how does it go?”
This-a-way and that-a-way,
Advancing still our standards toss:
The years are passing, where I left you,
Where I left you, stands a cross.
“And then there is the third verse, but they hardly ever sing that, and it’s said . . .”
“That will do,” said the General, and the Marshall saluted smartly.
“It doesn’t sound a very cheerful song,” remarked the General when the junior officer had gone away.
“Indeed no, not at all suitable,” agreed the colonels of the general staff with proper respect.
Every evening when the battles were over, while the earth was still smoking, swift messengers hurried off, eager to report the good news. The cities were decked out with flags, men embraced one another in the streets, church bells rang, yet anyone who passed through the poor quarters of the capital heard people singing, men, young girls, women, always that same song which had originated no one knew where. It was sad enough in all conscience, so full of resignation. Fair-haired girls, lying on their pillows, sang it in sad bewilderment.
Never in the history of the world, no matter how many centuries one goes back, were such victories recorded, never were armies so fortunate, generals so competent, advances so swift, never had so much land been conquered. Even the humblest private found himself at the end as rich as a lord, so much loot was there to share out. There was no limit to what one might hope for. Now they rejoiced in the cities, every evening wine ran down the gutters, beggars danced and between one tankard and another small groups of friends enjoyed a little song: “Over field and over valley,” they sang, including the third verse.
And if fresh battalions crossed the Piazza of the Coronation bound for the war, then the king lifted his head slightly from his pile of documents and petitions to listen, and he couldn’t understand why that song put him in a bad temper.
But over field and over valley the regiments advanced from year to year, always further and further away, nor was any order given for them to march back at last: and those who had wagered that they would very soon hear the last and most blessed news of all, lost their bet. Battles, victories, victories, battles. Now the armies were marching through incredibly far-off countries with names so outlandish that they couldn’t pronounce them.
Finally (after victory upon victory) the day came when the Piazza of the Coronation was deserted, the windows of the royal palace were barred, and at the city gate rumbled the approach of strange foreign chariots; and from the invincible armies sprang up, in faraway places, forests that had not been there before, monotonous forests of crosses that were lost on the horizon, and nothing more. Because neither fire nor sword, nor the unleashed fury of cavalry, can escape destiny, as prophesied in that song which to the king and the generals had seemed logically so inept for war. Over the years, insistently, through those simple words, fate itself had spoken, proclaiming in advance to the men what had been decreed. But the royal household, the military leaders, the wise ministers, were as deaf as posts. Not one of them had understood; only the ignorant soldiery, crowned with a hundred victories, marching wearily through the streets at the end of the day, had marched singing toward their death.
The Egg
THE INTERNATIONAL VIOLET CROSS ORGANIZED A GRAND egg hunt in the gardens of the Villa Reale for children under twelve years old—tickets were twenty thousand lira each.
The eggs were hidden under bundles of hay, waiting for the starting signal and the children could keep all the eggs they found. There were eggs of every kind and size—chocolate eggs, metal eggs, cardboard eggs, all containing the most wonderful presents.
Gilda Soso, a cleaner who was paid by the hour, heard of the hunt at the Casa Zernatta where she worked. Signora Zernatta was taking all her four children at a total cost of eighty thousand lira.
Gilda Soso, twenty-five years old, not pretty, yet not plain, short, petite, with a lively face full of kindness, but also of repressed desires, had a four-year-old daughter—a pretty little girl—whom she decided to take to the hunt.
When the day arrived she dressed her Antonella in a new coat and a felt hat that made her look like a child of well-to-do parents. Gilda, however, couldn’t make herself look well-off, her clothes were too threadbare. But she did something better: with the aid of some sort of cap she got herself up to look rather like an English nanny, and if you didn’t look too closely you might easily have taken her for one of those expensive nursemaids who hold diplomas from Geneva or Neuchatel.
They set off in good time for the gates of the Villa Reale, and here Gilda paused, looking about her as if she were a nursemaid awaiting her mistress. Presently cars arrived disgorging children who were going on the egg hunt. Signora Zernatta arrived with her four and Gilda turned aside to avoid being seen.
Was all this going to be a waste of time for Gilda? It wasn’t easy to choose the right moment of disorder and confusion to slip in without paying.
The egg hunt was to begin at three. At five minutes to three a presidential type of car drew up: it contained the wife of an important Minister with her children who had just arrived in Rome. At once the President, the Directors and Officials of the International Violet Cross pushed toward the Minister’s wife to welcome her, and this gave, in full measure, the desired confusion.
And so Gilda, the daily cleaner disguised as a nursemaid, entered the garden with her little
