54 Carlo's Farewell
Antonio, my Captain, We find ourselves in bad times, and I have the strongest feelings that I shall not survive them. You know how it is, how a cat creeps away to die, or a man sees the ghost of his own mother beside his bed when he is sick, or even meets the ghost of himself coming the other way at a crossroads.
You find with this letter all my writings that I have done since I came to this island, and if you read them you will discover what kind of man I am. I hope you are not disgusted, and I hope that, because you have a big and generous heart, you will be able to forgive me and remember me without contempt. I hope that you will remember all the times that we have embraced as comrades and brothers, and that you will not shudder with retrospective horror because they were the caresses of a degenerate. I have always tried to show you the affection that I have felt, without taking anything from you and without giving you anything that you did not want.
When you read these pages you will see that in Albania I was desolated by the loss of my comrade Francesco, and I wish to tell you here that the wound that I received in that war was a wound that I inflicted on myself. I am not ashamed I did what was right. When Francesco died, I wanted to die too. All the beauty went out of my life and everything was meaningless, but I lacked the unnatural courage that a man needs to blow away his own brains. I came to this beautiful island with nothing but a grey fog in my mind and an aching and empty heart that was inconsolable, bursting with grief and bitterness. What is a man who has a chest full of medals but a heart beneath it too disconsolate to beat? My dear Antonio, I want you to know that in return for your inextinguishable laughter, your great music, your incomparable spirit, I have loved you with the same
ABC Amber LIT Converter http:// ABC Amber LIT Converter http:// surprise and gratitude that I see in your own eyes when you are with Pelagia, and I shall remember you always, even when I am dead. You removed the sorrow from my breast and made me smile, and I have accepted and rejoiced in your friendship, always conscious of my own unworthiness, always struggling against any impulse to debase it, and I trust that for this you will not despise me as some might think that I deserve.
Antonio, I have so many memories of these few short months, it makes me weep to think of them now that they are gone. So many happy memories. Do you recall how you nearly blew yourself up with that mine, and I carried you back to the doctor's house? I knew then that if you had died I would have gone mad, and I now thank God that I shall die before you, so that I shall not have to bear the grief.
Antonio, I speak to you from beyond the grave, in seriousness. I have loved you with all my shameful heart, as much as I once loved Francesco, and I have conquered any envy that I might have felt. If a dead man may have a wish, it is that you should find your future with Pelagia. She is beautiful and sweet, there is no one who deserves you more, and no one else worthy of you. I wish that you will have children together, and I wish that once or twice you will tell them about their Uncle Carlo that they never saw. As for me, I hoist my knapsack on my shoulders and buckle the webbing, I put my arm through the sling of .my rifle, and I open the veil to march into the unknown as soldiers always will. Remember me.
Carlo.