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Article published on the L’Asino on January 1st 1922
Five years ago there wasn’t a boy nicer than him. The sight of blood horrified him. A child, once, pricked himself with a thorn, and when he showed him the tiny bleeding finger he became white as a clean sheet. Another time, when his cat killed a sparrow he had grown, he was about to start crying; one day, when he saw some kids tormenting a toad, scorned, he chased them away and hid the poor animal in a bush, to take it away from its tormentors. They once found him at night in a stable, bent on a dying horse, caressing it, hugging it and telling it the most loving words, as of he were talking to a friend. He never committed the slightest act of violence. When at home they pulled a chicken’s neck, he turned his head somewhere else. He never touched arms, he said they disgusted him. When he once found a gun in a drawer he screamed in terror, as if he had seen a snake. He loved his flowers, his plants, his animals, his land. Ah! How he loved his land! How did he harvest it with care, how did he defend it from enemies, how happy was he when the sun inundated it with light, how anxious did he get when the sky blackened and thunder roared from afar! A bad day the landowner with the flag, the priest, the police marshal, and a young boy with a bundle of newspapers, came to him.
-Leave everything there- they told him- and come with us.
What a blow that was for the boy!
They dragged him to the barracks, dressed him as a soldier, and then put a gun, a sword, a dagger, a revolver, a bayonet, a pack of cartridges, a bomb and a tin vase filled with flammable liquid on him.
-Here,- they said- kill!
-But I’ve never killed!- shouted the boy, crying.
-We will teach you how.
They thought him how to aim with the gun, how to grip the revolver, how to aim the heart and fire, they thought him how to manage the sword and break the cranium with a hack; they though him how to stuff the bayonet in the stomach; they thought him how to strike a dagger hit; they thought him how to launch a bomb; they thought him how to set a fire, how to assault, sack, devastate, and destroy every single thing. The boy cried, prayed, begged that he didn’t have the courage to do these things; but the owner waved the flag in front of him and talked to him about the country, the priest showed him the crucifix and talked to him about God, the policeman aimed his gun at him and talked to him about law, the journalist showed him papers and talked to him about civilization, democracies, honour, justice and glory. You had to kill for all these grand things. After five years of training, this man that paled for a drop of blood, that cried for the death of a bird, now threw bombs and fires revolvers and guns against people; this man that suffered when he saw a that a tree branch had been broken, that seemed afraid to hurt the grass when he walked through the fields, now, with blood-shot eyes and slaver on his mouth, yelling like a savage, raises his armed arm, that so many times had shook when picking a rose, in a  menacing manner. Who transformed him this way? War’s hate propaganda.
Scalarini