Every foot of land we ceded to the enemy was a new grief to my Italian heart. For every villa, for every square, for every expression of art we had to cede, for every remembrance profaned by the greedy barbarian, the wound became greater and hurt with a vehemence never heretofore experienced. At the death of my mother alone had I felt anything similar. I felt as though the world were crumbling about me. At dawn and at evening, on the rising of the sun and its setting, I would ask myself, how, with such immense grief in the world, nature could act according to her custom of mathematical regularity, regardless of so much suffering. With our successful resistance on the Piave the most painful days had passed. A wave of new bold blood, of passion, had permeated our fighters. They had found themselves again, and if anyone among them previously for a moment had felt a streak of cowardice, he now asked to be allowed to sacrifice his life, to place his multiplied energy at the disposal of his country. Often I had asked myself anxiously what would become of our villages; often flying low over the territories which were now held by the enemy but which I knew inch by inch, I had tried to discover what the enemy plans might be. I had tried to steal from the enemy the secret he guarded so jealously. Once indeed while flying over San Vendemmiano, over the road which passes near my villa, I discovered a long line of cars slowly traveling eastward. Without a moment’s hesitation I ordered the pilot to lower the plane as much as he could. We were a few hundred feet above the enemy when I let loose on them the fury of our machine gun. Gradually I saw a few men turn for cover towards my villa. This assured me that it, too, was occupied by the enemy, and I fired repeatedly at my own house. Small satisfaction though the deed brought me, it yet sufficed to drive away somewhat of the deep dejection which recent events had instilled.