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mattress that he was prodded with a bayonet and his wristwatch taken from him. The house and grounds of Y's husband are occupied by Indian troops. This artist held certain high posts connected with art during the Fascist regime; he is now very anxious about his wife Y. who wants to return from a nursing home in the town where she was sent at the beginning of the artillery battle on the hills, but where subsequently she found herself in the very centre of the fierce fighting which is still going on.. We looked in on two American ladies who live higher up on our hill. An English shell the burst in their garden playing havoc with the back part of their house. They escaped only by a hair-breadth.

August 15th I stepped out on to my terrace this afternoon, and was about to enjoy a moment's peace on a chaise longue, when like a flash of lightning a shell whizzed low over my head and burst in the valley not fifty yards away. Others followed aiming at the cannons on the Viale. These cannons make a terrific noise and sometimes they all go off together.
  A terrible battle was raging last night in the Via Bolognese direction. We are without news of any kind. This morning our hills were peppered  with  by German guns. Am feeling very tired; no way of getting any sleep.

August 17th Yesterday the Sfollata found that the villa wherein the Professor had been temporarily incarcerated, was empty. She was informed that its late inmates were now in the worst