The place was as full as
ever; we had to wait for a table. It is notable that there were still
great numbers of young men not in uniform in Milan and Turin and Vicenza
and Verona; there was no effect anywhere of a depletion of men. The
whole crowded place was smouldering with excitement. The diners
looked about them as they talked, some talked loudly and seemed to be
expressing sentiments. Newspaper vendors appeared at the intersection
of the arcades, uttering ambiguous cries, and did a brisk business of
flitting white sheets among the little tables.
"To-night," said my companion, "I think we shall declare war upon
Germany. The decision is being made."
I asked intelligently why this had not been done before. I forget the
precise explanation he gave. A young soldier in uniform, who had been
dining at an adjacent table and whom I had not recognised before as a
writer I had met some years previously in London, suddenly joined in our
conversation, with a slightly different explanation. I had been carrying
on a conversation in slightly ungainly French, but now I relapsed into
English.
But indeed the matter of that declaration of war is as plain as
daylight; the Italian national consciousness has not at first that
direct sense of the German danger that exists in the minds of the three
northern Allies.
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