The boys are a mystery to the narrator. He finds them working very hard at a tender age without spending money on themselves. His attempts to get an answer from the boys fail. However, when he accompanies the boys to Poleta, he comes to know the truth from a trained nurse whom he meets in the villa which the boys enter. From the nurse, he comes to know that the boys had lost their father, a widower and a well-known singer, in the early part of the war, and soon after that a **** had destroyed their home. They had lived in a shelter that they had built with their own hands from the rubble and were exposed to many difficulties including cold weather.
They had hated the ** Elite Guard that ruled over Verona for three years and had worked as secret agents against the Germans, in support of the resistance movement. Their small size, young age and knowledge of the surroundings helped them in their dangerous work of carrying letters in their shoes, about the movements of the ** troops. When the war was over, they returned to their sister, an. an aspiring singer, only to find out that she was suffering from tuberculosis of the spine. But they didn’t give up. They kept her in an expensive hospital and for twelve months went back to the hospital every week to make the payment. She had shown good progress and the nurse adds that she might, one day, be fully cured, and start singing again. The narrator is deeply touched by the nobility of the boys and marvels at their invincible spirit. Thus we see that the two little boys are the two gentlemen of Verona.
