"Fatina ..."
"Tell me, aren't you glad to have done your duty, to have given your blood for your country? Didn't you volunteer? Didn't you go willingly through the barbed wire to open a road of victory for your country? And now you are almost blaming yourself for the good you have done, for fear of the morrow. And you think yourself destined to end as a laughing-stock of horrid little children? Oh, but you are bad! Tell me, are you really so sure that you are alone in the world, that there is no one who will rejoice to see shining on your breast the medal your country has bestowed on you?"
"Ah, if it were so, Fatina, if it were true!"
"Do you believe that no one has followed you in thought through all your dangers on the field of honor, that no one suffered, knowing you were wounded, or trembled at the thought of your bed of pain? Do you really believe that there is no one to rejoice at seeing you take up again your place in the world? You are young, full of ardor and intelligence ..."
"But I am poor, so poor!"
"You can get rich by working. You fought the war with weapons; continue it with the pen. Write what you have seen; you will make a name for yourself and some day will be the pride of your family."
"I! Don't make fun of me, Fatina. I, wounded, maimed, will never find a woman to link her life with mine."
"Bersaglierino, I, too, am alone in the world, free to dispose of myself. I am not rich, but I have enough to live on; I am not a professor, but I am widely educated.... I will be frank; if to-morrow a brave man like you, in the same condition, should come and ask me ..."
"To be his wife?"
"I should say yes, and I should be proud. Do you understand? Proud of him and of the medal shining on his breast, which would seem like my own...."