American fiction -- 20th century; Short stories, American
In 1919 he was travelling on the railroads in Italy carrying a square
of oilcloth from the headquarters of the party written in indelible
pencil and saying here was a comrade who had suffered very much under
the whites in Budapest and requesting comrades to aid him in any way.
He used this instead of a ticket. He was very shy and quite young and
the train men passed him on from one crew to another. He had no
money, and they fed him behind the counter in railway eating houses.
He was delighted with Italy. It was a beautiful country he said. The
people were all kind. He had been in many towns, walked much and seen
many pictures. Giotto, Masaccio, and Piero della Francesca he bought
reproductions of and carried them wrapped in a copy of _Avanti_.
Mantegna he did not like.
He reported at Bologna, and I took him with me up into the Romagna
where it was necessary I go to see a man. We had a good trip
together. It was early September and the country was pleasant. He was
a Magyar, a very nice boy and very shy. Horthy’s men had done some
bad things to him. He talked about it a little. In spite of Italy, he
believed altogether in the world revolution.
—But how is the movement going in Italy? he asked.
—Very badly, I said.
—But it will go better, he said. You have everything here. It is the
one country that everyone is sure of. It will be the starting point
of everything.
At Bologna he said good-bye to us to go on the train to Milano and
then to Aosta to walk over the pass into Switzerland. I spoke to him
about the Mantegnas in Milano. No, he said, very shyly, he did not
like Mantegna. I wrote out for him where to eat in Milano and the
addresses of comrades. He thanked me very much, but his mind was
already looking forward to walking over the pass. He was very eager
to walk over the pass while the weather held good. The last I heard
of him the Swiss had him in jail near Sion.
chapter 12
They whack whacked the white horse on the legs and he knee-ed himself
up. The picador twisted the stirrups straight and pulled and hauled
up into the saddle. The horse’s entrails hung down in a blue bunch
and swung backward and forward as he began to canter, the _monos_
whacking him on the back of his legs with the rods. He cantered
jerkily along the barrera. He stopped stiff and one of the _monos_
held his bridle and walked him forward. The picador kicked in his
spurs, leaned forward and shook his lance at the bull. Blood pumped
regularly from between the horse’s front legs. He was nervously
wobbly. The bull could not make up his mind to charge.
chapter 13
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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