How long will it take? Who knows? The work of fire is silent and tenacious like a human vengeance. After an hour's march we abandon the poor, deserted dwellings, irremessibly condemned, vowed to death, yonder in the great sea of lava, and we get back in the main road, full of dust, leading to Boscotrecase.
At Boscotrecase
Entering the little town one receives the impression that nothing abnormal has happened there.
Truly few people are circulating in the streets, the shops are open, women are standing at the doors of their houses, sewing, chattering, while streams of children play in the sun. We go about the street which bears the name of Cardinal Prisco. It is extremely quiet, almost asleep in the meridian hours and we get to the Oratorio.
At the end of the road, between two houses we are surprised to see a kind of fence made of wood and beams, in the shape of a cross. Is it a barricade? No it is the barrier! On the other side there is lava.
There it is, in fact, the black enemy, there in the village, running between two wings of houses, sneaking in a little lane, there it lies dead without the strength to go any farther.
And this is only a little stream, but at a short distance, what vast and imposing river. All the Oratorio square is invaded and submerged. It is like a row of stormy waves, petrified as by a strange prodigy, standing erect among the edifices. Here, and there on the crest, a soldier, a sentinel appears. The image of S. Anna, the patron of the place has been taken elsewhere to a house on the ground floor, in Oratorio street, and the opened windows look like empty, while the bells hang in a silence which will have no end. I turn to another side, through a path the soldiers are opening. I pass between two lines of infantry diggers, small creatures curved on the stones, in an audacious and patient work.
They look and smile under the shade of their straw hats, and start again to work.
How many days have they been there?