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- I03 - as an open city For strategical reasons of their own the English did not come to terms, so the bridges of Florence were doomed. Such was the German version. Our neighbours had hoped that their son, a prisoner in Germany, might benefit by the very friendly attitude they were adopting towards their German Ally. But in the cave that night the whole family reacted violently. No insult could be found bad enough for the enemy as they now termed the Germans. They were Vandals, inhuman and treacherous. I shed tears with them. Memories of the aesthetic Captain Horn in no wise mitigated the grief manifested by the musical daughter of the house. With each successive detonation she became more and more distraught, and her father joined her as she paced up and down the dark cellar. In a chair propped up by cushions dealt out by a courteous hostess. I was in a state bordering on dementia. It was for my friend and me to take part in this now soaring, now heart-rending of modern cacophonous symphonies. We returned to the villa next morning at eight o'clock more dead than alive, an anxious host accompanying us to our door. No room had been made ready for us; the ground-floor evacuated by the Germans during the night was uninhabitable and our bed-rooms were covered with fallen plaster caused by the detonations. No one had thought to order the little maid to clean up a room. She was in bed resting, we were told.