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machine-guns.  So Communism is already foreshadowing the arrival of English and American troops:  At Naples where a battle is imminent, the Communists predominate.  Should the Germans leave Florence anything may happen.  The villas (including Sant' Agnese) will in all probability be sacked and their owners either killed or sent to God knows where.  Out Sigora afollata had some of her rescued household treasures brought up here:  an ice-box, a kitchen stove, a clock, several tins full of clothes.  She seems oblivious of the fact that it is entirely due to the present military control that she is allowed to possess these things.  Yet, most irrelevantly she goes about airing her inimical views concerning the powers that be.
  October 4th.  It is said that the Germans are to be quartered on the hills about Florence.  They were for taking-over the well-known young girls' school, Peggie Imperiale.  Subsequently these plans were changed, but the Directress of the School was advised to leave with her pupils for a while since English aeroplanes had been seen taking photographs of the place.
  It is also sad that Galilee's Tower on the slopes facing our garden is to be used as the German Military Headquarters.  If this is true, all about Florence will be bombed even as were the outskirts of Rome.
  Our refuge has an unprotected side looking over the seemingly peaceful valley: "We are being caught in a net!"