Besides, he thought, as he looked in the windows of the various shops he passed, the charcuterie with the Parmesan cheeses and the hams from San Daniele, and the sausages alla cacciatora, and the bottles of good Scotch whisky and real Gordon’s gin, the cutlery store, an antique dealer’s with some good pieces and some old maps and prints, a second-rate restaurant disguised expensively as one of the first class, and then came to the first bridge crossing a feeder canal with steps to be climbed, I don’t feel so badly. There is only the buzzing. I remember when that started and I thought perhaps it was seven year locusts in the trees and I did not like to ask young Lowry but I did. And he answered, No, General, I don’t hear any crickets or seven year locusts. The night is perfectly quiet except for the usual noises.
Then, as he climbed, he felt the twinges, and coming down the other side, he saw two lovely looking girls. They were beautiful and hatless and poorly but chicly dressed, and they were talking very fast to each other and the wind was blowing their hair as they climbed with their long, easy striding Venetian legs and the Colonel said to himself, I’d better quit window gazing along this street and make that next bridge, and two squares afterwards you turn due right and keep along it till you are in Harry’s.
He did just that, twinging on the bridge, but walking with his same old stride and only seeing, quickly, the people that he passed. There’s a lot of oxygen in this air, he thought, as he faced into the wind and breathed deeply.
Then he was pulling open the door of Harry’s bar and was inside and he had made it again, and was at home.
At the bar a tall, very tall, man, with a ravaged face of great breeding, merry blue eyes, and the long, loose-coupled body of a buffalo wolf, said, “My ancient and depraved Colonel.”
“My wicked Andrea.”
They embraced and the Colonel felt the rough texture of Andrea’s handsome tweed coat that must have been entering, at least, its twentieth year.
“You look well, Andrea,” the Colonel said.
It was a lie and they both knew it.
“I am,” said Andrea, returning the lie. “I must say I never felt better. You look extraordinarily well, yourself.”
“Thank you, Andrea. Us healthy bastards shall inherit the earth.”
“Very good idea. I must say I wouldn’t mind inheriting something these days.”
“You have no kick. You’ll inherit well over six feet four of it.”
“Six feet six,” said Andrea. “You wicked old man. Are you still slaving away at la vie militaire?”
“I don’t slave too hard at it,” the Colonel said. “I’m down to shoot at San Relajo.”
“I know. But don’t make jokes in Spanish at this hour. Alvarito was looking for you. He said to tell you he’d be back.”
“Good. Is your lovely wife and are the children well?”
“Absolutely, and they asked me to remember them to you if I saw you. They’re down in Rome. There comes your girl. Or one of your girls.” He was so tall he could see into the now almost dark street, but this was a girl you could recognize if it was much darker than it was at this hour.
“Ask her to have a drink with us here before you carry her off to that corner table. Isn’t she a lovely girl?”
“She is.”
Then she came into the room, shining in her youth and tall striding beauty, and the carelessness the wind had made of her hair. She had pale, almost olive colored skin, a profile that could break your, or any one else’s heart, and her dark hair, of an alive texture, hung down over her shoulders.
“Hello, my great beauty,” the Colonel said.
“Oh, oh, hello,” she said. “I thought I would miss you. I am so sorry to be late.”
Her voice was low and delicate and she spoke English with caution.
“Ciao, Andrea,” she said. “How is Emily and are the children?”
“Probably just the same as when I answered that same question for you at noon.”