In the
burning sun, I went, every day, to wait, in the crowd, for letters
about him. Often they did not come. I saw blood that had streamed on
the wall where Ossoli was. I have a piece of a bomb that burst close
to him. I sought solace in tending the suffering men; but when I
beheld the beautiful fair young men bleeding to death, or mutilated
for life, I felt the woe of all the mothers who had nursed each to
that full flower, to see them thus cut down. I felt the _consolation_,
too,--for those youths died worthily. I was a Mater Dolorosa, and I
remembered that she who helped Angelino into the world came from the
sign of the Mater Dolorosa. I thought, even if he lives, if he comes
into the world at this great troubled time, terrible with perplexed
duties, it may be to die thus at twenty years, one of a glorious
hecatomb, indeed, but still a sacrifice! It seemed then I was willing
he should die.
* * * * *
Angelino's birth-place is thus sketched:
My baby saw mountains when he first looked forward into the world.
RIETI,--not only an old classic town of Italy, but one founded by what
are now called the Aborigines,--is a hive of very ancient dwellings
with red brown roofs, a citadel and several towers.
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