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[...] Cenzo Rena had been ashamed to take the money to those fat women combing their hair, and yet that was what he ought to have done, but shame was the thing that spoilt human beings, probably without shame human beings would have been a little less nasty. But now there was no time left to argue …

The Turk was very pleased that the war was not going well, in Africa the Italians were running away over the desert, in Greece there was slush and snow and mud and the Italians were unable to advance. But Cenzo Rena told him in Turkish not to delude himself too much, the war would go on for a very …

Cenzo Rena explained to Anna that these were not among the most wretched of the villages, the truly wretched villages were still further south, villages of utterly poor contadini, without either schools or chemists’ shops or doctors. At Borgo San Costanzo there was a doctor and a school, but the do…

[...] For them there had been no fanfare of trumpets, he said. And that was a good thing, because when fate announced itself with a loud fanfare of trumpets you always had to be a little on your guard. Fanfares of trumpets usually announced only small, futile things, it was a way fate had of teasin…

She said yes, she would marry him. But she told him she felt a little cold at the thought of having decided something for the whole of her life. Cenzo Rena said he himself felt very cold too, he felt long, cold shudders down his back, but anyone who was afraid of a cold shudder did not deserve to l…