A regiment in a powerful army was supposed to be parading through the city streets. Since the crack of dawn the troops had been lined up in parade formation in the courtyard of the barracks.
The sun was already high in the sky and the shadows shortened at the feet of the scrawny saplings in the courtyard. Under their freshly polished helmets, soldiers and officials were dripping with sweat. High up on his white horse, the colonel gave a sign: the drums rolled, the whole band began to play and the barracks gate swung slowly on its hinges.
Beyond you could see the city now, under a blue sky crossed by soft clouds, the city with its chimneys shedding wisps of smoke, its balconies with their washing lines bristling with pegs, glints of sunshine reflected in dressing-table mirrors, flyscreen curtains catching the earrings of ladies with their shopping, an ice-cream cart complete with sunshade and glass box for cones, and, tugged at the end of a long string by a group of children, a kite with red paper rings for a tail which skims along the ground, then lifts in jerks and straightens against the soft clouds in the sky.
The regiment had begun to advance to the beat of the drums, with a great stamping of boots on the paving and rattling of artillery; but on seeing the city before them, so quiet and good-natured, minding its own business, the soldiers felt indiscreet somehow, intrusive, the parade suddenly seemed out of place, it struck a wrong note, people could really do without it.
One of the drummers, a certain Pre Gio Batta, pretended to proceed with the roll he'd begun but in fact only skimmed the skin of his drum. What came out was a subdued tippety-tap, but not just from him: it was general; because at exactly the same moment all the other drummers did what Pre did. Then the trumpets came out with no more than a sighed solfeggio, because nobody was putting any puff into it. Glancing about uneasily, soldiers and officials stopped with one leg in the air, then put it down very softly, and resumed their parade on tiptoe.
So without anybody having given an order, the long, very long column, proceeded on tiptoe with slow restrained movements, and a muffled, swishing shuffle. Walking beside those cannons, so incongruous here, the artillerymen were suddenly overtaken by a sense of shame: some tried to pretend indifference, walking along without ever looking at the guns, as if they were there by purest chance; others stuck as close to the guns as they could, as though to hide them, to save people from such a rude and disagreeable sight, or they put covers over them, capes, so that they wouldn't be noticed, or at least wouldn't attract attention; others again assumed an attitude of affectionate mockery towards the things, clapping their hands on the gun carriage, on the breech, pointing at them with half a smile on their lips: this to show that they had no intention of using them for lethal purposes, but just meant to give them an airing, like some grotesque gadgetry, huge and rare.
This confused feeling had even penetrated the mind of Colonel Clelio Leontuomini, who had instinctively lowered his head to his horse's, while the horse, for his part, had begun to put in a pause between each step, moving with the caution of a cart horse. But it took only a moment's reflection for colonel and horse to recover their martial gait. Having made a rapid assessment of the situation, Leontuomini gave a sharp order:
'Parade step!'
The drums rolled, then began to beat a measured rhythm. The regiment quickly regained its composure and was now tramping forward with aggressive self-confidence.
'There,' the colonel said to himself, casting a quick glance over the ranks, 'that's a real regiment on the march.'
On the pavement a few passers-by stopped to line the road, and they looked on with the air of people who would like to be interested and maybe even take pleasure in the deployment of so much energy, but are troubled by a feeling they don't really understand, a vague sense of alarm, and in any event have too many serious things on their minds to start thinking about sabres and cannons.
Sensing these eyes on them, troops and officials were again overtaken by that slight, inexplicable uneasiness. They went on marching with their rigid parade step, but they couldn't rid themselves of the idea that they were doing these good citizens a wrong. In order not to be distracted by their presence, Infantryman Marangon Remigio kept his eyes down: when you march in columns your only concerns are keeping in line and keeping in step; the detachment can take care of everything else. But hundreds and hundreds of soldiers were doing what Infantryman Marangon was doing; in fact you could say that all of them, officials, ensigns, the colonel himself, were advancing without ever raising their eyes from the ground, faithfully following the column. Proceeding at parade step, their band at their head, the regiment was thus seen to veer to one side, leave the paved road, stray into a flowerbed in the park and push on determinedly trampling down buttercups and lilacs.
The gardeners were watering the grass and what did they see? A regiment advancing on them with eyes closed, stamping their heels on the tender grass. The poor men couldn't think how to hold their hoses without directing them at the soldiers. They ended up pointing them vertically upwards, but the long jets fell back in unsuspected directions; one watered Colonel Clelio Leon-tuomini from head to toe as he too advanced bolt upright, his eyes closed.
Showered with water, the colonel jumped and let out a shout:
'Flood! Flood! Mobilize for rescue!' Then immediately he pulled himself together, regained command of the regiment and led them out of the gardens.
But he was a bit disappointed. That shout of, 'Flood! Flood!' had betrayed a secret and almost unconscious hope: that a natural disaster would suddenly occur, without killing anyone, but dangerous enough to call off the parade and give the regiment a chance to do all kinds of useful things for people: building bridges, organizing rescues. This alone would have soothed his conscience.
Having left the park, the regiment was now in a different part of town, not in the broad avenues where they were supposed to be parading, but in an area of narrow, quiet, winding lanes. The colonel decided he would cut through these streets to get to the square without wasting any more time.
An unusual excitement reigned in the area. Electricians were fixing the streetlamps with long portable ladders and lifting and lowering the telephone wires. Surveyors from the civil engineers were measuring the streets with ranging rods and spring-wind tape measures. The gasmen were using picks to open up big holes in the pavement. Schoolchildren were walking along in line. Bricklayers were tossing along bricks to each other, shouting: 'Hey up, hey up!' Cyclists went by with stepladders on their shoulders, whistling hard. And at every window a maid was standing on the sill washing the panes and wringing out wet cloths into big buckets.
Thus the regiment had to proceed with its parade down those winding streets, pushing their way through a tangle of telephone wires, tape measures, stepladders, holes in the road, and well-endowed schoolgirls, and at the same time catching bricks in flight -- 'Hey up! hey up!' -- and avoiding the wet cloths and buckets that excited maids dropped crashing down from the fourth floor.
Colonel Clelio Leontuomini had to admit he was lost. He leaned down from his horse toward a passer-by and asked:
'Excuse me, but do you know the shortest way to the main square?'
The passer-by, a small fellow with glasses, stood for a moment in thought:
'It's complicated; but if you let me show you the way I'll take you through a courtyard into another street and you'll save at least a quarter of an hour.'
'Will the whole regiment be able to get through this courtyard?' the colonel asked.
The man shot them a glance and made a hesitant gesture:
'We-ell! We can try?' and he led them through a big door.
Lined up behind the rusty railings of the balconies, all the families in the building leaned out to look at the regiment trying to get into their courtyard with their horses and artillery.
'Where's the door we go out through?' the colonel asked the small fellow.
'Door?' the man asked. 'Perhaps I wasn't very clear. You have to climb to the top floor, from there you get through to the stairs in the next building and their door goes through to the other street.'
The colonel wanted to stay on his horse even up those narrow stairs, but after two landings he decided to leave the animal tied to the banister and proceed on foot. The cannons too, they decided, would have to be left in the courtyard where a cobbler promised he would keep an eye on them. The soldiers went up in single file and at every landing doors opened and children shouted:
'Mummy! Come and look. The soldiers are going by! The regiment is on parade!'
On the fifth floor, to get from this staircase to another secondary one that led to the attic, they had to walk outside along the balcony. Every window gave on bare rooms with lots of pallet beds where whole families full of children lived.
'Come in, come in,' said the dads and mums to the soldiers. 'Rest a while, you must be tired! Come through here, it's shorter! But leave your rifles outside; there are kids here, you understand . . .'
So the regiment broke up along the passageways and corridors. And in the confusion, the small fellow who knew the way could no longer be found.
Came the evening and still companies and platoons were wandering through stairways and balconies. At the top, perched on the roof coping, was Colonel Leontuomini. He could see the city spread beneath him, spacious and sharp, with its chequer-board of streets and big empty piazza. Beside him, on their hands and knees on the tiles, were a squadron of men, armed with coloured flags, flare pistols and drapes with flashes of colour.
'Transmit,' said the colonel. 'Quick, transmit: Area impracticable . . . Unable to proceed . . . Awaiting orders . . .'