International Song

The Internationale appears in the book as a socialist song carried by a marching crowd in Milan. Its collective sound briefly gives the marchers a shared voice; in the account’s sharply opposed political perspectives, however, the song is also made to signify an international allegiance that a fascist observer regards as alien to Italy. When a bomb explodes, the singing stops and the crowd scatters.

The Song in the March

The song is heard in a large socialist procession whose participants are described as a crowd rather than a disciplined formation. The narrative records a fragment of its Italian words, invoking struggle and an international future for humanity. The anthem is not presented in isolation: it rises from a demonstration in which marchers move beneath red flags, and women at the head of a socialist column carry a portrait of Vladimir Lenin and call for a better life for their children. In another depiction of socialist demonstrators, women lead the procession singing songs of liberation. That broader image gives the named song a place within the march’s collective political expression without establishing that every song in the procession is The Internationale.

A Hostile Listener

The account places the song within the perception of Albino Volpi, who watches the socialist crowd from a bridge. He hears its melody as solemn, low-pitched, and monotonous, and interprets its reference to an international future as evidence that the singers belong to something foreign rather than Italian. His reaction is not a neutral description of the anthem’s meaning: it exposes the ideological divide through which he views the marchers, whom he reduces to a disordered mass. The song thus marks a clash over political belonging as much as it identifies the crowd’s socialist affiliation.

The Sound and Its Interruption

The narration lingers on the contrast between the song’s repeated, subdued cadence and the crowd’s movement. To Volpi, that sound evokes distant plains and hardship; this association belongs to his prejudiced interpretation, not to an independently established meaning of the song. His response turns listening into a political judgment: he treats the anthem’s internationalism as a threat whose course can be changed by violence.

Volpi throws a bomb toward the crowd. The explosion abruptly ends the singing; cries replace the procession’s song, and the crowd scatters. The interruption gives the anthem a precise narrative function: it is the sound of a collective march that violence silences at the moment the political confrontation becomes physical.

Meaning in the Book

The Internationale connects individual voices to a claim of solidarity beyond national borders. In this scene, that claim is filtered through an adversary who construes it as a denial of Italian identity, while the marchers are also shown asserting practical hopes for their families. The difference between those meanings is central to the scene: the song can be heard as a language of liberation by its singers and recast as a sign of alien allegiance by the man who attacks them. Its sudden silencing makes the conflict between collective expression and political violence audible.