A Soldier of the Great War Read Online Free PDF

around them, everywhere—in the trees that swayed lightly, like ocean waves; in the rich colors of late afternoon as the retreating sun made the east a shadowless perfection of evenly throbbing light; in the slightly dusty haze that came with the approach of evening, dry and cool; in the wheat as the wind traveled through it as slowly as a boat in the thick of polar seas; and in all the memories summoned by these beauties to resonate and sing, until, in their ecstatic multiplication, they closed themselves off to mortal view by virtue of the light that is too bright to see.
    Nicolò had no notion that everything was not well. He thought that the fine weather, the flat road, and the sun at their backs were all to be expected. He was surprised by Alessandro's silence, for he had assumed from the very beginning, because the old man had left the streetcar for Nicolò's sake, that the walk would be paved with his words. Did he not, in his first sentences, launch the explosive shell about his escape over the ice fields? Even if the old were inconsistent and cranky, they did sometimes tell good stories, and this fellow, with his shock of straight white hair, his finely tailored suit, the slim bamboo cane, and a noble bearing that Nicolò had seen only ... well, had never seen ... would undoubtedly have a lot to say.
    He wanted Alessandro to talk endlessly in stories and regale him with things from an age before he was born. He would listen eagerly not because he had any hint of what the old man would elucidate, but, to the contrary, because he hadn't the vaguest idea of what had made the man who limped steadily alongside him on the road to Sant' Angelo and Monte Prato.
    Nicolò also didn't understand that Alessandro knew exactly what a young man would expect, and (before Nicolò had given any indication whatsoever of such expectations) was offended by what were, in fact, the boy's assumptions.
    After all, Alessandro Giuliani was paid more than decently to speak and to write. Why should this boy expect that, in walking, he would overflow with speech? And why should the boy assume that the old man, having seen what he had seen, having contended throughout his life with great and ineffable forces, having survived into old age, and having known, intimately and deeply, both natural and feminine beauty, would want to say anything at all? For kilometers and kilometers, they walked the straight road in absolute silence.
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    N ICOLÒ FOUND it difficult to believe that Alessandro was not moving faster, for, perhaps because of the blurred-spokes effect caused by the movement of his legs and his active cane, and the unusual up-and-down motion of his limping gait, he looked as if he were going very fast. It seemed as if, had he been able to channel all the energy with which he moved and checked himself, he would have been swifter than a gazelle. But he was slow.
    Nicolò, who moved smoothly and effortlessly, ached to run or climb. "What's that?" he asked, though not as a question, pointing to a mound of earth sitting in the middle of a field. Soon he was racing toward it, the briefcase bouncing against his back as he jumped irrigation ditches and ran among the furrows. Then he re
turned by way of a little dam over which water was pouring in a curve that looked like a leaping fish.
    "What are these side trips?" Alessandro inquired.
    Nicolò shrugged.
    "You know, I once had a dog," the old man continued, "a big black English dog named Francesco. Every time I took him for a walk, he covered three times the distance I did."
    "Why do you tell me this?" Nicolò asked.
    "I don't know," Alessandro said, waving his arms in the air as if to indicate confusion. "It just came to me."
    "Do you still have him?"
    "No, that was a long time ago. He died when I was in Milan, but I think of him on occasion, and in teaching I often use him as an example."
    "You're a teacher?" Nicolò asked, with noticeable discomfort, for he had never been