In the autumn, the war continues, but we no longer go to bat. The late autumn in Milan is chilly and it gets dark very early. In a blink of an eye, the lights come on, and it’s very pleasant to look at the shop windows along the street. There was a lot of game hanging outside the shop door: snowflakes sprinkled on the curly fur of the fox, and the cold wind blew the fluffy tail; the stiff deer with its internal organs hung heavily; strings of small birds fluttered in the wind, their feathers fluttering. . It was a very cold autumn day, and the wind blew from the hills.

Every afternoon, we go to the hospital. There are three roads leading to the hospital through the city at dusk. There are two along the canal, but they are too long, so people always walk across the bridge across the canal to go to the hospital. There are three bridges on the river, you can walk on them all, it’s up to you to choose. On one of them was a woman selling roasted chestnuts. Standing in front of her charcoal fire, my whole body felt warm. I put the roasted chestnuts in my pocket and they stayed warm for a while. The hospital is very old and beautiful. As soon as you enter the gate, there is a courtyard. Go through it and there is another door on the opposite side. When you go out, you will reach the hospital. Funeral ceremonies often begin in the courtyard. ①Milan: a city in northwestern Italy. beginning. There are several new brick houses opposite the old hospital. Every afternoon, we met there, sitting in the operating chair that would cure our illnesses. We were polite and asked each other what the illness was.

The doctor came to my operating chair and said, "Before the war, what did you like most? Playing football?"

"Yes, playing football," I said.

"Okay," he said, "you will play football again, and you will definitely play better than before."

I have a disease in my knee joints, from the knee to the ankle. The calf between them is stiff, as if there is no calf. The medical device allows the knee joint to bend as flexibly as riding a three-wheeled bicycle. But I can't bend it yet. When the medical device is turned to the knee joint, it tilts and it doesn't work. The doctor said: "Everything will go well. Boy, you are a lucky man. You will play football again, like a championship player."

There was a major sitting in the operating chair next to him. One of his hands was as small as a doll's hand. The traction belt that flipped up and down clamped the little hand, slapping the stiff fingers. When it was his turn to examine him, the major winked at me and asked the doctor: "Can I also play football again, chief doctor?" He was a very good swordsman, and before the war he was the best swordsman in Italy.

The doctor returned to the clinic at the back and brought a photo of a shrunken hand, almost as small as the major's. It was taken before plastic surgery, and it looked bigger after treatment. It's one o'clock. The major held the photo in his good hand, looked at it very carefully, and asked, "Is it a gunshot wound?"

"Work-related injury," the doctor answered.

"Very interesting, very interesting," the major said, handing the photo back to the doctor.

"Is it time for you to have confidence?"

"No," the major replied.

Every day, three young men of similar age to me come to the hospital. They are all Milanese. One wants to be a lawyer, one wants to be a painter, and the other aspires to be a soldier. Sometimes, after a day's treatment, we would walk back together to the Kehua Café next door to Scala. Because the four of them were traveling together, they dared to take shortcuts and pass through the communist-inhabited area. The people there hated us officers. As we walked by. Someone in a hotel shouted: "Abassogliuiciali!" ② There was another young man who sometimes traveled with us, making us five companions. At that time, his nose was ruined and needed plastic surgery, and his face was temporarily covered with a piece of black silk. He went straight from the military academy to the front line and was wounded an hour later. The doctors gave him plastic surgery, but because he came from a very old family, the doctors could not straighten his nose. He traveled to South America and worked in a bank. That was a long time ago. None of us know how the war will develop. We only know that the war is still going on, but we will never have to go to the front line again.

We all wear the same medal, except for the young man with his face wrapped in black silk; he didn't stay at the front for long, so he didn't get the medal.

The tall, pale man who wanted to be a lawyer had three medals, but each of us only had one. Because he was an Italian commando captain, he had been on the front line for a long time and narrowly escaped death, so he was a little aloof. In fact, we are all a little detached. Apart from meeting each other in the hospital every afternoon, there was no deeper friendship. However, every time we passed through the "forbidden zone" in the city, went to Kehua Cafe, or walked side by side in the dark, drinking. ① La Scala: Milan's famous opera house. ②Italian: "Down with the officer!" When the lights are flashing and singing is going on in the store, or when men and women are busy on the sidewalk and we have to push aside the crowd and squeeze into the street, we feel that we have been affected by some similar experience. And the connection between breath and breath is something that those who hate us cannot understand.

Several of us are very familiar with Kehua Cafe. It is gorgeous, warm, and the lights are not too dazzling. There is always a period of time every day that is full of people and smoke. The girls often sat at the table, where several illustrated newspapers stood on the wall shelf. The girls in Kehua are very patriotic. I found that the most patriotic people in Italy are the girls in the cafes - I think they are still patriotic now.