CHE TI DICE LA PATRIA?
“Why not?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Then thanks,” the young man said, not “thank you,” or “thank you very much,” or “thank you a thousand times,” all of which you formerly said in Italy to a man when he handed you a time-table or explained about a direction. The young man uttered the lowest form of the word “thanks” and looked after us suspiciously as Guy started the car. I waved my hand at him. He was too dignified to reply. We went on into Spezia.
“That’s a young man that will go a long way in Italy,” I said to Guy.
“Well,” said Guy, “he went twenty kilometres with us.”
A MEAL IN SPEZIA
We came into Spezia looking for a place to eat. The street was wide and the houses high and yellow. We followed the tram-track into the centre of town. On the walls of the houses were stencilled eye-bugging portraits of Mussolini, with hand-painted “vivas,” the double V in black paint with drippings of paint down
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