Difficult Loves by Italo Calvino Page B

slowly around in the sky above him. Was it a crow? he wondered. Now the boy would be certain to shoot it down. But the shot seemed to be a long time in coming. Perhaps the crow was flying too high? And yet he had hit other birds flying higher and faster. Finally there was a shot; now the crow would fall, but no, it went on flying around in slow impassive
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    turns. A pine cone fell though, from a tree nearby. Was he beginning to shoot at pine cones now? One by one other pine cones were hit and fell with little thuds. At every shot the soldier looked at the crow; was he falling? No, the black bird was making lower and lower turns above him. Surely it was impossible the boy hadn't seen it? Perhaps the crow did not exist? Perhaps it was a hallucination of his? Perhaps when one is about to die one sees every kind of bird pass; when one sees the crow it means one's time has come. He must warn the boy, who was still going on firing at the pine cones. So the soldier got to his feet and pointed at the black bird. "There's a crow!" he shouted in his own language. The bullet hit him in the middle of an eagle with spread wings embroidered on his tunic.
    Slowly the crow came circling down.
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    ONE OF THE THREE IS STILL ALIVE
    Three naked men were sitting on a stone. All the men of the village were standing around them and facing a bearded old man.
    "... and they were the highest flames I've ever seen in the mountains," the old man with the beard was saying. "And I said to myself: How can a village burn so high?
    "And the smell of smoke was unbearable and I said to myself: How can smoke from our village stink like that?"
    The tallest of the three naked men, who was hugging his shoulders because there was a slight wind, gave the oldest a dig in the ribs to get him to explain; he still wanted to understand, and the other was the only one who knew a little of the language. But the oldest of the three did not raise his head from between his hands, and now and again a quiver passed along the vertebrae on his bent back. The fat man was no longer to be counted on; the womanish fat on his body was trembling all over, his eyes were like windowpanes streaked by rain.
    "And then they told me that the flames burning our houses came from our own grain, and the stink was from our sons
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    being burned alive; Tancin's son, Gé's son, the son of the customs guard. ..."
    "My son Bastian!" shouted a man with haunted eyes. He was the only one who interrupted, every now and again. The others were standing there silent and serious, with their hands on their rifles.
    The third naked man was not of exactly the same nationality as the others; he came from a part where villages and children had been burned at one time. So he knew what people think about those who burn and kill, and should have felt less hopeful than the others. Instead of which there was something, an anguished uncertainty, that prevented him from resigning himself.
    "Now, we've only caught these three men," said the old man with the beard.
    "Only three!" shouted the haunted-looking man; the others were still silent.
    "Maybe among them, too, there are some who aren't really bad, who obey orders against their will, maybe these three are that sort...."
    The haunted-looking man glared at the old man.
    "Explain," whispered the tallest of the three naked men to the oldest. But the other's whole life now seemed to be running away down the vertebrae on his spine.
    "When children have been killed and houses burned one can't make any distinction between those who're bad and not bad. And we're sure of being in the right by condemning these three to death."
    "Death," thought the tallest of the three naked men. "I heard that word. What does it mean—'death'?"
    But the oldest one took no notice of him, and the fattest
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    now seemed to be muttering prayers. Suddenly the fattest had remembered he was a Catholic. He had been the only Catholic in the company, and his comrades had often made fun of him.