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-10-

October 2nd. Have been in bed all day with a cold.

I hear that the Professor is no longer a Senator, the Senate having been dissolved. With it goes an income of some four thousand lire, no insignificant item in a modest fortune.

My maid went down to see how some friends of hers had fared during the bombing. She came back weeping; the whole family had been killed. The new attacking planes are now so swift that they allow [[strikethrough]] of [[/strikethrough]] no time for seeking safety.

Signora S. who is apt to make most improbable statements told us that Churchill in his speech had expressed regrets for having inconvenienced the Florentines during the bombing. He advises them to withdraw to a certain distance beyond the railways.

Consternation: Santa Maria Novella is well within this prescribed area and so are many other old churches and buildings.

Our sfollata came back this evening from her ruins. She has saved many things, but the poor Professor's library, though still stading, is now doomed at any moment to collapse, exposed as it is to wind and rain. This bourgeois couple are pathetically attached to their belongings. Though they have lived here many years, they seemed to possess few objects worthy even of a second-hand art collector's haul. On one of my visits to their villa I was shown with pride a plaster cast of the Victory of Samothrace seemingly carved out of bad butter; its