C O M I N G H O M E
As we drive up to La Foce, chaos meets our eyes. The house is still standing, with only one shell-hole in the garden façade and several in the roof. In the garden, which has also got several shell-holes and trenches for machine-guns, they have stripped the pots off the lemons and azaleas, leaving the plants to die. The ground is strewn with my private letters and photographs, mattresses and furniture stuffing. The inside of the house, however, is far worse. The Germans have stolen everything that took their fancy; blankets, clothes, shoes and toys, as well, of course, as anything valuable or eatable, and have deliberately destroyed much of sentimental or personal value. In the dining room the table is still laid, and there are traces of a drunken meal; empty wine-bottles and smashed glasses lie beside a number of my summer hats (which presumably have been tried on), together with boot-trees, toys, overturned furniture and W.C. paper. The lavatory is filled to the brim with filth, and decaying meat, lying on every table, adds to the smell. There are innumerable
flies
. In our bedroom, too, it is the same.
Author: Origo, Iris, 1902- Title: War in Val d'Orcia : a diary. -- Published: London : J. Cape, [1947] Description: 239 p. : ill., fold. map.