human
Do you know why Florentines, coming home from abroad, always rejoice to see that wonderful dome of theirs rising up from the plain?
gpt
Why?
human
Can't you guess?
gpt
Let me see. It is sure to be something not quite proper. H'm.... The tower of Giotto, for example, has certain asperities, angularities, anfractuosities----
human
You are no Englishman whatever! he laughed.
gpt
Now try that joke on the next Florentine you meet.... There was a German here, he went on,
human
How German. And then?
gpt
The war came. He cleared out. The natives were sorry. This whole coast seems to be saturated with Teutons--of a respectable class, apparently. They made themselves popular, they bought houses, drank wine, and joked with the countrymen.
human
What do you make of them?
gpt
I am a Tuscan, he began (meaning: I am above race-prejudices; I can view these things with olympic detachment).
human
I think the German says to himself: we want a world-empire, like those damned English. How did they get it? By piracy. Two can play at that game, though it may be a little more difficult now than formerly. Of course, he added,
gpt
I know. That makes him very angry.
human
It makes him angry not with the Germans who are responsible for the war, but with his own government which is responsible for conscripting the boys. Ah, what a stupid subject of conversation! And how God would laugh, if he had any sense of humour! Suppose we go down to the beach and lie on the sand. I need rest: I am very dilapidated.
gpt
You look thin, I must say.
human
Typhoid, and malaria, and pleurisy--it is a respectable combination. Thin? I am the merest framework, and so transparent that you can see clean through my stomach. Perhaps you would rather not try? Count my ribs, then.
gpt
Count your ribs? That, my dear Lieutenant, is an occupation for a rainy afternoon. Judging by your length, there must be a good many of them....
human
We should be kind to our young soldiers, said the Major to whom I was relating, after dinner, the story of our afternoon promenade. A burly personage is the Major, with hooked nose and black moustache and twinkling eyes--retired, now, from a service in the course of which he has seen many parts of the world; a fluent raconteur, moreover, who keeps us in fits of laughter with naughty stories and imitations of local dialects.
gpt
We must be nice with them, and always offer them cigarettes. What say you, Mr. Lieutenant?
human
Yes, sir. Offer them cigarettes and everything else you possess. The dear fellows! They seldom have the heart to refuse.
gpt
Seldom,