John went chiefly to the schools, in one of which he was
even asked to teach Italian. His knowledge of his own language was
remarkable and most unusual!
'But what,' I asked, 'brought you back?'
'It was my father. You see, if I did not come to have my military
service, I must stay till I am forty. So I think perhaps my father will
be dead, I shall never see him. So I came.'
He had come home when he was twenty to fulfil his military duties. At
home he had married. He was very fond of his wife, but he had no
conception of love in the old sense. His wife was like the past, to
which he was wedded. Out of her he begot his child, as out of the past.
But the future was all beyond her, apart from her. He was going away
again, now, to America. He had been some nine months at home after his
military service was over. He had no more to do. Now he was leaving his
wife and child and his father to go to America.
'But why,' I said, 'why? You are not poor, you can manage the shop in
your village.'
'Yes,' he said. 'But I will go to America. Perhaps I shall go into the
store again, the same.'
'But is it not just the same as managing the shop at home?'
'No--no--it is quite different.
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