The Conscript Mother
()
About this ebook
Robert Herrick
Dr. Robert W. Herrick is one of the world’s leading authorities in semiconductor laser reliability and failure analysis with over 25 years of experience in this field. After receiving his MSEE from the University of Illinois, United States, he worked as a designer and process developer on many of the earliest record-breaking integrated photonics devices in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He did his PhD research at the University of California, Santa Barbara, United States in the mid-1990s, doing the first research on VCSEL reliability and failure analysis. After graduating, he worked for many of the largest optoelectronic transceiver providers, including HP/Agilent, EMCORE, Finisar, and JDSU, primarily in VCSEL reliability and failure analysis, but also in roles in fiber optic transceiver reliability. He now works for Intel’s Silicon Photonics Product Division and is the Principal Engineer responsible for laser reliability.
Read more from Robert Herrick
The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Greatest Christmas Carols & Poems: 150+ Holiday Songs, Poetry & Rhymes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA selection from the lyrical poems of Robert Herrick Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Master of the Inn Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Memoirs of an American Citizen Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Big Book of Christmas Treasure Tales: 500 Christmas Classics - Novels, Tales, Carols & Legends Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTIS THE SEASON TO BE JOLLY - Christmas Carols & Poems: 150+ Holiday Songs, Poetry & Rhymes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClark's Field Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe World Decision Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Man Who Wins Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Web of Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Memoirs of an American Citizen Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHis Great Adventure Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ultimate Christmas Library: 400+ Novels, Stories, Poems, Carols & Legends Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClark's Field Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLiterary Love-Letters and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Common Lot Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTogether Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOne Woman's Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Selection from the Lyrical Poems of Robert Herrick Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTheir Child Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Conscript Mother
Related ebooks
Iago: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5When Flags Collide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Tightening String Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWe were boys Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Deadly Paradise Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Right Of Reply Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWounds: A Memoir of War and Love Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I Was a Spy!: The Classic Account of Behind-the-Lines Espionage in the First World War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Patriot (Piccolo Mondo Antico) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Angel of History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret Of The Night Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInstructions for Visitors: Life and Love in a French Town Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Love in the Land of Barefoot Soldiers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStories by Foreign Authors: French I Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlack Cat Weekly #7 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsShylock's Daughter: A Novel of Love in Venice Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Berlin Game: A Bernard Sampson Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe White Dove Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mysterious Mr. Miller Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDiversions in Sicily Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSand Against the Wind Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAlibi: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Wonder Book of Soldiers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHeaven Cries Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Prince and the Page: A Story of the Last Crusade Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTwo Scorched Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Three Times and Out: Told by Private Simmons, Written by Nellie L. McClung Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSins of the Innocent Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Butcher of Spain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHis Most Italian City Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
General Fiction For You
Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man Called Ove: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shantaram: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Priory of the Orange Tree Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The City of Dreaming Books Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heroes: The Greek Myths Reimagined Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alchemist: A Graphic Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ulysses: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unhoneymooners Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beartown: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jackal, Jackal: Tales of the Dark and Fantastic Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Candy House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Ends with Us: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Recital of the Dark Verses Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meditations: Complete and Unabridged Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Second Life of Mirielle West: A Haunting Historical Novel Perfect for Book Clubs Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Other Black Girl: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everything's Fine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nettle & Bone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Sister's Keeper: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Conscript Mother
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Conscript Mother - Robert Herrick
Robert Herrick
The Conscript Mother
Published by Good Press, 2022
goodpress@okpublishing.info
EAN 4064066419400
Table of Contents
I
II
III
I
Table of Contents
WHEN I met the signora at the tram station that May morning she was evidently troubled about something which was only partly explained by her murmured excuse, a sleepless night.
We were to cross the Campagna to one of the little towns in the Albanian hills, where young Maironi was temporarily stationed with his regiment. If we had good luck and happened upon an indulgent officer, the mother might get sight of her boy for a few minutes. All the way over [Pg 2] the flowering Campagna, with the blue hills swimming on the horizon before us, the signora was unusually taciturn, seemingly indifferent to the beauty of the day, and the wonderful charm of the Italian spring, to which she was always so lyrically responsive on our excursions. When a great dirigible rose into the blue air above our heads, like a huge silver fish, my companion gave a slight start, and I divined what was in her mind—the imminence of war, which had been threatening to engulf Italy for many months. It was that fear which had destroyed her customary gayety, the indomitable cheerfulness of the true Latin mother that she was.
It is coming,
she sighed, glancing up at the dirigible. It will not be long now before we shall know—only a few days.
And to the ignorant optimism of my protest she smiled sadly, with the fatalism that women acquire in countries of conscription. It was futile to combat with mere theory and logic this conviction of a mother’s heart. Probably the signora had overheard some significant word which to her sensitive intelligence was more real, more positive than all the subtle reasonings at the Consulta. The sphinx-like silence of ministers and diplomats had not been broken: there was nothing new in the situation.
The newspapers were as wordily empty of fact as ever. And yet this morning for the first time Signora Maironi seemed convinced against her will that war was inevitable.
These last days there had been a similar change in the mood of the Italian public, not to be fully explained by any of the rumors flying about Rome, by the sudden exodus of Germans and Austrians, by anything other than that mysterious sixth sense which enables humanity, like wild animals, to apprehend unknown dangers. Those whose lives and happiness are at stake seem to divine before the blow falls what is about to happen.... For the first time I began to believe that Italy might really plunge into the deep gulf at which her people had so long gazed in fascinated suspense. There are secret signs in a country like Italy, where much is hidden from the stranger. Signora Maironi knew. She pointed to some soldiers waiting at a station and observed: They have their marching-kit, and they are going north!
We talked of other things while the tram crept far up above the Campagna and slowly circled the green hillsides, until we got down at the dirty little gray town of Genzano, where Enrico Maironi’s regiment had been sent. There were no barracks. The soldiers were quartered here and there in old stone buildings. We could see their boyish faces at the windows and the gray uniform of the granatieri in the courtyards. It seemed a hopeless task to find the signora’s boy, until a young lieutenant to whom the mother appealed offered