"As far as I can see," said the doctor, looking at us closely, "you can't say that anyone in particular was to blame. It was a bloody business what with guerilla warfare and illegality. Probably these two were really spies…But," he went on, raising his voice above the discussion that was beginning again, "who formed the first bands? Who wanted civil war? Who gave the Germans and the others such provocation? The communists. Always the communists. They're responsible. They're the assassins. It's an honour which we Italians grant them willingly…"
His conclusion pleased everyone. Then I said I didn't agree with him. He asked me why. The year you spoke of, I said, I was still in America. (Silence.) And in America I was interned. (Silence.) In America, which is America after all, I said, the papers had carried a proclamation by the King and Badoglio which ordered all Italians to take to the hills, to engage in guerilla warfare, to attack the Germans and fascists in the rear. (Silence.) No one remembered about it now. They began to argue again.
[The Moon and The Bonfire, Pavese, C.]
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