Trafika Europe 14 - Italian Piazza

THE ANIMAL GAZER By Edgardo Franzosini http://newvesselpress.com/books/the-animal-gazer/ Translated from the Italian by Michael F. Moore

As of August 20, under the advance of the divisions of the Central Powers, the capital of Belgium was no longer Brussels but Antwerp. The Austrian 305-mi l l imeter mortars and the 45-ton Krupp howitzers had devastated the cities and laid waste to the vi l lages. Liège was overrun and torn asunder. The news that Rembrandt read in Le Matin d’Anvers was shocking. Al l was being submerged beneath a dark f lood of atrocities, horrors, and perversions. The trees were gone from the countryside and the f ields were burning. The roads were l ined on either side with the bodies of the dead: decomposing corpses immersed in puddles of rain and blood. The houses had been looted. Chairs, armchairs, and mattresses had been gutted, furniture overturned, ti les ripped up, wal lpaper torn off, in search of gold, jewelry, cash. Requisition orders were posted on wal ls riddled with gunf ire but sti l l standing. Bodies were hanging from telephone poles. The Germans had set f ire to barns, pouring gas f irst on the pigs and the cows. The elderly had been forced to march at the head of columns of the imperial army 11