IN the fall the war was always there, but we did not go to it any more.
It was cold in the fall in Milan and the dark came very early. Then the
electric lights came on, and it was pleasant along the streets looking
in the windows. There was much game hanging outside the shops, and the
snow powdered in the fur of the foxes and the wind blew their tails. The
deer hung stiff and heavy and empty, and small birds blew in the wind
and the wind turned their feathers. It was a cold fall and the wind came
down from the mountains.
We were all at the hospital every afternoon, and there were different
ways of walking across the town through the dusk to the hospital. Two of
the ways were alongside canals, but they were long. Always, though, you
crossed a bridge across a canal to enter the hospital. There was a
choice of three bridges. On one of them a woman sold roasted chestnuts.
It was warm, standing in front of her charcoal fire, and the chestnuts
were warm afterward in your pocket. The hospital was very old and very
beautiful, and you entered through a gate and walked across a courtyard
and out a gate on the other side. There were usually funerals starting
from the courtyard. Beyond the old hospital were the new brick
pavilions, and there we met every afternoon and were all very polite and
interested in what was the matter, and sat in the machines that were to
make so much difference.
The doctor came up to the machine where I was sitting and said: “What
did you like best to do before the war? Did you practise a sport?”