Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/238

206 “If he were to see you, would he remember you?” asked his son.

He began to laugh.

“You are crazy!” he answered. “That's quite another thing. He, Umberto, was one single man; we were as thick as flies. And then, he never looked at us one by one.”

We turned into the Course Victor Emanuel; there were many people on their way to the station. A company of Alpine soldiers passed with their trumpets. Two armed policemen passed by on horseback at a gallop. The day was calm and glorious.

“Yes!” exclaimed the elder Coretti, growing animated, “it is a real pleasure to me to see him once more, the general of my division. Ah, how quickly I have grown old! It seems as though it were only the other day that I had my knapsack on my shoulders and my gun in my hands, at that affair of the 24th of June, when we were on the point of coming to blows. Umberto was going to and fro with his officers, while the cannon were thundering in the distance; and every one was gazing at him and saying, 'May there not be a bullet for him also!' I was a thousand miles from thinking that I should soon find myself so near him, in front of the lances of the Austrian uhlans; actually, only four paces from each other, boys. That was a fine day; the sky was like a mirror; but so hot! Let us see if we can get in.”

We had arrived at the station; there was a great crowd,—carriages, policemen, carabineers, societies with banners. A regimental band was playing. The