The Bersagliere sits panting, his eyes roll around the shop vacantly and wildly. Suddenly his glance falls on the half finished wooden Christ lying on the table. He struggles up, clutches it, and presses it to his lips. His hands close over it, his bleeding face breaks into pitiful sobs, and he moans like an animal.
The American, turning his head away, bites his lips muttering:
“Their Christ—Their Christ.
They will all die for him;
But Ah! it takes anguish,
Anguish of many kinds,
To make us humble enough
To make us wise enough
To try to live for him.”
The war correspondent leaves the flask in the hands of the Woodcarver, who hangs over his friend like a woman, taking off the hat, smoothing the battered coque feathers, stroking the hair back from the bleeding brow. He pours water out of a flask, and bathes the grey shaking face; he finally draws a very small fragment of his black bread from his breast, and, with a strange passionate gesture of renunciation, offers it to the soldier, who wolfishly snatches, and quickly devours it. He groans with his eyes closed, then looks appealing up at the Christ in the Woodcarver’s hand, and crosses himself.
The Woodcarver in a low tone to the American:
It is like the Sacrament.
The American: It is like—— It is like—— The war correspondent breaks off suddenly; he flings himself to the door clenching his hand. The child runs to him, beckoning and pointing to sky.
Overhead, far above the buildings, flies a squadron of airplanes. They are bronze, gold and silver in the sunlight. The correspondent looking at them with his field glasses, can distinguish them as Austrian planes. They drop no bombs. As they pass the war correspondent looks back over his shoulder at the Woodcarver—
War correspondent:
They drop no bombs on Venice,
Do they treasure beauty still?
So that they are loath to crush?