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September 12th. The escape of Mussolini! Mussolini rescued by German aviators! Whatever political opinons one may hold, the rescue of Mussolini lifts the mind to those epic tales which are now to be enriched by the reality of today.

September 15th. This afternoon we walked to town where at a teashop Natalie had a rendez-vous with an old acquaintance, a French woman married to an Italian professor. This woman is a fierce anti-Fascist, although her husband has made his entire career as a Fascist. She eats an ice-cream with her back turned to the window so as not to see the great German lorries clanking along the street, and while she and Natalie hold forth I turn to watch the young German soldiers seated high on their dust-coloured lorries; blend warriors with weather-beaten faces, they represent the millions of other blond warriors who on the Eastern front are keeping the Red Russians at bay.

One of these lorries stops at the tea-shop and a very young German soldier comes in and orders an ice. His face is dark pink, his hair bright yellow and he is served the greenest of green ice-creams (pistachio). Outside his comrades are impatiently calling him. In haste he gulps down great spoonfuls of his green ice. An instant only and then this vivid colour-scheme vanishes from the room.

September 27th. At 11 o'clock an air-raid. For the first time ombs fell on Florence. All the windows of our Villa rattled. We went down to our make-shift refuge under the terrace. While sitting there