fair-haired, blue-eyed faces of the north; the excited gesticulation of Naples, the silvery Tuscan intonation, the rattling Venetian chatter, a hundred groups, a hundred dialects; on this side, songs and noisy talk, on that side running, jumping, and hand-clapping; men of every class, sons of dukes, senators, generals, shopkeepers, government employés; a strange assemblage, suggesting the university, the monastery, and the barracks; with talk of women, war, novels, the orders of the day; a life teeming with feminine meannesses and virile ambitions; a life of mortal ennui and frantic gayety, a medley of sentiments, actions, and incidents, absurd, tragic, or delightful, from which the pen of a great humorist could extract the materials for a masterpiece.
Such was the military college of Modena in the year 1865.
III.
I cannot recall the two years that I spent there without being beset by a throng of memories from which I can free myself only by passing them all in review, one after another, like pictures in a magic-lantern; now laughing, now sighing, now shaking my head, but feeling all the while that each episode is dear to me and will never be forgotten while I live.
