SILENCE‘The army is the aristocratic form of emigration’
Gottfried Benn
The black cockroach on the stage threatened all of creation.
‘Mon cher ami,’ Colonel Verri said to Captain Valentini, who was standing next to him, ‘my ears are crying.’
The Captain didn’t reply. He kept his gaze fixed on the stage, but he wasn’t listening.
The piazza was crowded. Infantry units had been deployed in rows in the middle of the square; on the right, towards the lagoon, stood the youth organizations; on the left were all civilians, and there were a great many of them. The piazza’s architecture was funereal.
The sky was blue and the sun was fixed in its middle. So much indifference didn’t bode anything good. The local party secretary’s threats hadn’t shaken up the ranks, it had instilled fear in them.
