'That is he--you see, Signore--the young one under the balcony.'
The father spoke with love and pride, and the father was a gentleman,
like Falstaff, a pure gentleman. The daughter-in-law also peered out to
look at Il Giovann', who was evidently a figure of repute, in his
sordid, degenerate American respectability. Meanwhile, this figure of
repute blew himself red in the face, producing staccato strains on his
cornet. And the crowd stood desolate and forsaken in the cold, upper
afternoon.
Then there was a sudden rugged '_Evviva, Evviva_!' from the people, the
band stopped playing, somebody valiantly broke into a line of the song:
_Tripoli, sara italiana,
Sara italiana al rombo del cannon'._
The colonel had appeared on the balcony, a smallish man, very yellow in
the face, with grizzled black hair and very shabby legs. They all seemed
so sordidly, hopelessly shabby.
He suddenly began to speak, leaning forward, hot and feverish and
yellow, upon the iron rail of the balcony. There was something hot and
marshy and sick about him, slightly repulsive, less than human. He told
his fellow-villagers how he loved them, how, when he lay uncovered on
the sands of Tripoli, week after week, he had known they were watching
him from the Alpine height of the village, he could feel that where he
was they were all looking.
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