My comrades continued on their weary way, but I entered the cemetery for a moment to bring a greeting to the tomb of my mother. Nothing had changed, the little graves were still there, so were the round wreaths which trembled in the wind, and at the background near the encircling wall was our family tomb. The sepulchral stone was still intact and on it were yet engraved the words, “Famiglia De Carlo Granelli.” The great rose bush which climbed up the cross looked weary; its fallen petals rested on the tomb. I knelt with one knee on the ground. All my life reappeared before me with the sweetness of infancy, and from my dry lips there came the cry of suffering humanity, the cry I have heard so often from the mouths of the wounded and dying, “Mother, Mother!” I prayed for a moment, then I plucked one of the red roses which still bloomed for the dead and their survivors and returned to the dusty road. As I reached the first houses of Vittorio everything seemed devastated, everything seemed changed. It was as if I were meeting a person I had known as young and beautiful and whom I now saw again after his surviving some terrible skin disease. Every place was cluttered with filth left by the soldiers and reeked with the nauseating stench of their refuse. I recognized the smell; it was the smell which would greet us on entering the trenches seized from the enemy, it was the smell of the enemy, of the Austrians. I slowly sauntered along the road flanked by mansions on which bulletins in German were posted, “Weg nach Fadalto.” I had reached the great gate in front of my house, the façade had not been touched, the large coat-of-arms in hammered brass was still in its place. This was strange because they had gone about requisitioning all metals for making projectiles. On the threshold I met several Austrian officers who were leaving the house and they did not even look at me. I went up the service stairs and reached one of the ante-rooms. The doors were open, an inch of dust lay on the old furniture, and on the huge, round chest of drawers under which we used to hide when we were children. The huge carved portals of the ballroom were open and I entered. The great mural paintings which celebrate the glories and clemency of Alexander—because one of my ancestors was called Alexander—were still hanging on the walls. The chandeliers of Venetian glass still depended from the high ceiling and the beams in the Sansovinian style still displayed the whiteness of their plaster and their gilt coatings. The room seemed larger than usual and more severe in its nakedness. The furniture had been removed so that I could better appreciate the calm, harmonious lines of the Corinthian columns supporting the beams. The gilt painted figures high up near the gallery were still in their places and seemed to gaze out at me from their carved frames. In that gallery, in the eighteenth century the musicians were wont to sit, and powdered ladies bent in courtesies to the gay