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At Pria dell' Acqua, a most misleading name, where there was no water, but only a collection of wooden huts, another road branched off westwards, running parallel to the front line, behind the southern ridge of the Plateau. The Italian Engineers had created a magnificent network of roads in this sector of the Front. Before the war there had been only one road into Asiago from the plain.
"'Ah! she yawned; 'how very tiresome they all are! "She pulled a cord energetically till the sound of a bell rang through the place; then, humming a few notes of Pria che spunti, the countess entered her room. No one had ever heard her sing; her muteness had called forth the wildest explanations.
"Deh quando to sarai tornato al mondo, E riposato de la lunga via, Seguitò 'l terzo spirito al secondo, Ricorditi di me che son la Pia: Siena mi fè; disfecemi Maremma; Salsi colui che 'nnanellata pria Disposando m' avea con la sua gemma." Sienna was my place of birth, The Marshes of my death. This knoweth he, Who placed upon my hand the spousal ring.
And all of a sudden, he crashed like lightning, like a tiger: Morro!... ma vendicato ... Again when he was singing ... when he was singing that celebrated air from "Matrimonio segreto," Pria che spunti ... then he, il gran Garcia, after the words, "I cavalli di galoppo" at the words, "Senza posa cacciera," listen, how stupendous, come e stupendo!
"Nothing is here for tears; nothing to wail Or knock the breast; no weakness or contempt." And I found him less that One with the grand tragic visage, whose words so often quiver with unshed tears, who went forth upon his journey .... pei dolci pomi Promessi a me per lo verace Duca; Ma fino al centro pria convien ch'io tomi: E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle,
There is a little chapel there, but no other buildings. This chapel was used by the R.A.M.C. as a First Aid Post. One day I saw a shell go clean through the roof of it, but there was no one inside at the time. The Battery O.P. was a glorious place, up a tall pine tree on the summit of Cima del Taglio, a high point to the east of the Granezza Pria dell' Acqua road.
The road we came to know best was the continuation of the wonderful road up from the plain, through Granezza to the cross-roads at Pria dell' Acqua, and on through the Baerenthal Valley to San Sisto. Thence it led through the front line trenches into the town of Asiago itself.
Our right hand gun was only a hundred yards from the cross-roads at Pria dell' Acqua, disagreeably close, as we afterwards discovered. For the enemy had those cross-roads "absolutely taped," as the expression went. In other respects the Battery position was a good one.
The composer, begged by his young rival to sing, gave them that greatest of musical masterpieces viewed as execution, the famous "Pria che spunti l'aurora," which Rubini himself never attempted without trembling, and which had often been Conti's triumph. Never was his singing more extraordinary than on this occasion, when so many feelings were contending in his breast. Calyste was in ecstasy.
Meanwhile the enemy guns were not silent. They were indeed unpleasantly active, constantly sweeping the road just behind our Battery, putting down violent, though brief, concentrations on the cross roads at Pria dell' Acqua, less than a hundred yards to our right, and apparently also endeavouring to carry out occasional counter-battery shoots after our own pattern.