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of a band of Communists into the hospital garden. The Sisters fearing their intentions, asked Y to leave at once. She was very weak and had no idea where to go. Most providentially her daughter-in-law who was searching for her, appeared on the scene in time and brought Y back to her home. 
      
We were to assist at a very bitter discussion between Y. and her husband. He spoke most of the time and his round pink face turned to a vivid red when he reproached her for not sharing his political opinions. Now it is not for me to linger over these divergences which nowadays occur in many families; suffice it to say that when the aggrieved husband, no longer angry, but tearfully pathetic, evoked his unhappy life and bewailed the fact that ruin stared him in the face on account of his wife's recalcitrant views, now at that very moment I glanced over at Y. The expression of her cadaverous face so beautifully carved by suffering, was enigmatic. The long lips, were they not curved into a most improbable smile?

September 9th  Yesterday some ten American soldiers came here, headed by a rough and loud-speaking Italian who demanded to take over the villa. Antonio explained that the two ladies were in bed, invalids, whereupon the man answered 'We will send the two ladies elsewhere to be taken good care of.' Antonio then showed him the Sfollati's quarters. In the meantime one of the soldiers entered the ground-floor room where N. was ill in bed. She expressed regrets at not being able to get up to welcome him. A grunt was the reply. The quarters proved unsuitable and after the party left we debated as to whether