The next year there were many victories. The mountain that was beyond the valley and the hillside where the chestnut forest grew was captured and there were victories beyond the plain on the plateau to the south and we crossed the river in August and lived in a house in Gorizia that had a fountain and many thick shady trees in a walled garden and a wistaria vine purple on the side of the house.
读书笔记
是否公开
2
-
现在战争在好几道高山外进行,而不是近在一英里外了。小镇很好,我们的屋子也挺好。
读书笔记
是否公开
2
-
Now the fighting was in the next mountains beyond and was not a mile away. The town was very nice and our house was very fine.
The river ran behind us and the town had been captured very handsomely but the mountains beyond it could not be taken and I was very glad the Austrians seemed to want to come back to the town some time, if the war should end, because they did not bombard it to destroy it but only a little in a military way.
People lived on in it and there were hospitals and cafe and artillery up side streets and two bawdy houses, one for troops and one for officers, and with the end of the summer, the cool nights, the fighting in the mountains beyond the town, the shell-marked iron of the railway bridge, the smashed tunnel by the river where the fighting had been, the trees around the square and the long avenue of trees that led to the square.
these with there being girls in the town, the King passing in his motor car, sometimes now seeing his face and little long necked body and gray beard like a goat’s chin tuft; all these with the sudden interiors of houses that had lost a wall through shelling, with plaster and rubble in their gardens and sometimes in the street, and the whole thing going well on the Carso made the fall very different from the last fall when we had been in the country. The war was changed too.
The forest of oak trees on the mountain beyond the town was gone. The forest had been green in the summer when we had come into the town but now there were the stumps and the broken trunks and the ground torn up, and one day at the end of the fall when I was out where the oak forest had been I saw a cloud coming over the mountain.
It came very fast and the sun went a dull yellow and then everything was gray and the sky was covered and the cloud came on down the mountain and suddenly we were in it and it was snow.
The snow slanted across the wind, the bare ground was covered, the stumps of trees projected, there was snow on the guns and there were paths in the snow going back to the latrines behind trenches.
Later, below in the town, I watched the snow falling, looking out of the window of the bawdy house, the house for officers, where I sat with a friend and two glasses drinking a bottle of Asti, and, looking out at the snow falling slowly and heavily, we knew it was all over for that year.
Up the river the mountains had not been taken; none of the mountains beyond the river had been taken. That was all left for next year. My friend saw the priest from our mess going by in the street, walking carefully in the slush, and pounded on the window to attract his attention. The priest looked up. He saw us and smiled. My friend motioned for him to come in. The priest shook his head and went on.
That night in the mess after the spaghetti course, which every one ate very quickly and seriously, lifting the spaghetti on the fork until the loose strands hung clear then lowering it into the mouth, or else using a continuous lift and sucking into the mouth, helping ourselves to wine from the grass-covered gallon flask; it swung in a metal cradle and you pulled the neck of the flask down with the forefinger and the wine, clear red, tannic and lovely, poured out into the glass held with the same hand; after this course, the captain commenced picking on the priest.
The priest was young and blushed easily and wore a uniform like the rest of us but with a cross in dark red velvet above the left breast pocket of his gray tunic. The captain spoke pidgin Italian for my doubtful benefit, in order that I might understand perfectly, that nothing should be lost.
读书笔记
是否公开
13
-
“教士今天玩姑娘,”上尉说,眼睛看着教士和我,教士笑一笑,脸孔泛红,摇摇头。这上尉时常逗他。
读书笔记
是否公开
13
-
"Priest to-day with girls," the captain said looking at the priest and at me. The priest smiled and blushed and shook his head. This captain baited him often.
读书笔记
是否公开
14
-
“你否认?我今天亲眼看见的,”上尉说。
读书笔记
是否公开
14
-
"Not true?" asked the captain. "To-day I see priest with girls."
读书笔记
是否公开
15
-
“没有这回事,”教士说。别的军官都觉得逗得很有趣。
读书笔记
是否公开
15
-
"No," said the priest. The other officers were amused at the baiting.
"Priest not with girls," went on the captain. "Priest never with girls," he explained to me. He took my glass and filled it, looking at my eyes all the time, but not losing sight of the priest.
"Priest every night five against one." Every one at the table laughed. "You understand? Priest every night five against one." He made a gesture and laughed loudly. The priest accepted it as a joke."The Pope wants the Austrians to win the war," the major said. "He loves Franz Joseph. That’s where the money comes from. I am an atheist."
读书笔记
是否公开
18
-
“你看过《黑猪猡》那部书吗?”中尉问我。“我给你找一本来。那书动摇了我的信仰。”
读书笔记
是否公开
18
-
"Did you ever read the ’Black Pig’?" asked the lieutenant. "I will get you a copy. It was that which shook my faith."
读书笔记
是否公开
19
-
“那是一部卑鄙龌龊的书,”教士说。“你不会当真喜欢它的。”
读书笔记
是否公开
19
-
"It is a filthy and vile book," said the priest. "You do not really like it."
"It is very valuable," said the lieutenant. "It tells you about those priests. You will like it," he said to me. I smiled at the priest and he smiled back across the candle-light. "Don’t you read it," he said.
读书笔记
是否公开
21
-
“我给你找一部来,”中尉说。
读书笔记
是否公开
21
-
"I will get it for you," said the lieutenant.
读书笔记
是否公开
22
-
“有思想的人都是无神论者,”少校说。“不过我也不相信什么共济会①。”
①共济会是一种秘密团体,最初可能是中世纪石匠间的一种互相救济的组织。天主教严禁教友参加这种组织。
读书笔记
是否公开
22
-
"All thinking men are atheists," the major said. "I do not believe in the Free Masons however."
读书笔记
是否公开
23
-
“我可相信共济会,”中尉说。“那是个高尚的组织。”有人进来了,门打开时,我看得见外面在下雪。
读书笔记
是否公开
23
-
"I believe in the Free Masons," the lieutenant said. "It is a noble organization." Some one came in and as the door opened I could see the snow falling.
读书笔记
是否公开
24
-
“雪一下就不会再有进攻了,”我说。
读书笔记
是否公开
24
-
"There will be no more offensive now that the snow has come," I said.
读书笔记
是否公开
25
-
“当然没有啦,”少校说。“你应当休假玩一玩。你应当到罗马,那不勒斯,西西里——”
读书笔记
是否公开
25
-
"Certainly not," said the major. "You should go on leave. You should go to Rome, Naples, Sicily--"
读书笔记
是否公开
26
-
“他应当到阿马斐去,”中尉说。“我给你写些介绍卡,去找我家里的人。他们一定会把你当亲儿子看待。”
读书笔记
是否公开
26
-
"He should visit Amalfi," said the lieutenant. "I will write you cards to my family in Amalfi. They will love you like a son."
读书笔记
是否公开
27
-
“他应该到巴勒摩去。”
读书笔记
是否公开
27
-
"He should go to Palermo."
读书笔记
是否公开
28
-
“他得到卡普里去。”
读书笔记
是否公开
28
-
"He ought to go to Capri."
读书笔记
是否公开
29
-
“我希望你去观光阿布鲁息①,探望一下我在卡勃拉柯达的家属,”教士说。
① 阿布鲁息为意大利中东部一古地区名。
读书笔记
是否公开
29
-
"I would like you to see Abruzzi and visit my family at Capracotta," said the priest.
"Listen to him talk about the Abruzzi. There’s more snow there than here. He doesn’t want to see peasants. Let him go to centres of culture and civilization."
"He should have fine girls. I will give you the addresses of places in Naples. Beautiful young girls--accompanied by their mothers. Ha! Ha! Ha!" The captain spread his hand open, the thumb up and fingers outspread as when you make shadow pictures.
There was a shadow from his hand on the wall. He spoke again in pidgin Italian. "You go away like this," he pointed to the thumb, "and come back like this," he touched the little finger. Every one laughed.
"Look," said the captain. He spread the hand again. Again the candle-light made its shadows on the wall. He started with the upright thumb and named in their order the thumb and four fingers, "soto-tenente (the thumb), tenente (first finger), capitano (next finger), maggiore (next to the little finger), and tenentecolonello (the little finger). You go away soto-tenente! You come back soto-colonello!" They all laughed. The captain was having a great success with finger games. He looked at the priest and shouted, "Every night priest five against one!" They all laughed again.
读书笔记
是否公开
34
-
“你应该立刻就休假,”少校说。
读书笔记
是否公开
34
-
"You must go on leave at once," the major said.
读书笔记
是否公开
35
-
“我倒希望可以陪你一道去,做个向导,”中尉说。
读书笔记
是否公开
35
-
"I would like to go with you and show you things," the lieutenant said.
"I would like you to go to Abruzzi," the priest said. The others were shouting. "There is good hunting. You would like the people and though it is cold it is clear and dry. You could stay with my family. My father is a famous hunter."
读书笔记
是否公开
43
-
“走吧,”上尉说。“我们趁早逛窑子去,否则又要碰上人家关门了。”
读书笔记
是否公开
43
-
"Come on," said the captain. "We go whorehouse before it shuts."