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returned yesterday morning with an artist friend to see my picture 'Boreal', the only one I have here.We were resting after a sleepless night and the young man said he would return, but he never did. Later we heard that he had been killed by a shrapnel while reading on his terrace.

August 8th We tried lunching in my ground-floor room that gives on to the garden. Our guests were two Americans, mother and daughter, who are staying with our neighbours. During the meal the shells whizzed low over our heads, bits of shrapnel scrapping the roof. I still possess one of these a long, heavy-jagged piece of shell that fell the other day into the farm-yard. It looks more barbarous than the canes set with sharks' teeth belonging to my African collection. Finally holding our plates, we were forced to take refuge in a narrow corridor leading to the bath-room. The young girl told us that when coming up from the Porta Romana, a shell burst somewhere near and she found herself walking on a road strewed with arms, legs, and bowels of people that had been hit.
August 9th The American mother and daughter have left our hill to return to their home near Porta Romana. They sent word that it was terrible down there: shells from the retreating Germans and constant fighting in the streets between civilians.
August 10th The English have penetrated the north side of Florence. German shells are whistling over the house and exploding all round about us.