“Let us skip him,” the girl said. “Is that how you say it?”
“Let’s skip him,” the Colonel said.
“When we have so little time, Richard. He is rather a waste of time.”
“I was looking at him as at a drawing by Goya. Faces are pictures too.”
“Look at mine and I will look at yours. Please skip the man. He didn’t come here to do anyone any harm.”
“Let me look at your face and you not look at mine.”
“No,” she said. “That’s not fair. I have to remember yours all week.”
“And what do I do?” the Colonel asked her.
Ettore came over, unable to avoid conspiracy and, having gathered his intelligence rapidly and as a Venetian should, said,
“My colleague who works at his hotel, says that he drinks three or four highballs, and then writes vastly and fluently far into the night.”
“I dare say that makes marvelous reading.”
“I dare say,” Ettore said. “But it was hardly the method of Dante.”
“Dante was another vieux con,” the Colonel said. “I mean as a man. Not as a writer.”
“I agree,” Ettore said. “I think you will find no one, outside of Firenze, who has studied his life who would not agree.”
“Eff Florence,” the Colonel said.
“A difficult maneuver,” Ettore said. “Many have attempted it but very few have succeeded. Why do you dislike it, my Colonel?”
“Too complicated to explain. But it was the depot,” he said deposito, “of my old regiment when I was a boy.”
“That I can understand. I have my own reasons for disliking it too. You know a good town?”
“Yes,” said the Colonel. “This one. A part of Milano; and Bologna. And Bergamo.”
“Cipriani has a large store of vodka in case the Russians should come,” Ettore said, loving to joke rough.
“They’ll bring their own vodka, duty free.”
“Still I believe Cipriani is prepared for them.”
“Then he is the only man who is,” the Colonel said.
“Tell him not to take any checks from junior officers on the Bank of Odessa, and thank you for the data on my compatriot. I won’t take more of your time.”
Ettore left and the girl turned toward him, and looked in his old steel eyes and put both her hands on his bad one and said, “You were quite gentle.”
“And you are most beautiful and I love you.”
“It’s nice to hear it anyway.”
“What are we going to do about dinner?”
“I will have to call my home and find out if I can come out.”
“Why do you look sad now?”
“Do I?”
“Yes.”
“I am not, really. I am as happy as I ever am. Truly. Please believe me, Richard. But how would you like to be a girl nineteen years old in love with a man over fifty years old that you knew was going to die?”
“You put it a little bluntly,” the Colonel said. “But you are very beautiful when you say it.”
“I never cry,” the girl said. “Never. I made a rule not to. But I would cry now.”
“Don’t cry,” the Colonel said. “I’m gentle now and the hell with the rest of it.”
“Say once again that you love me.”
“I love you and I love you and I love you.”
“Will you do your best not to die?”
“Yes.”
“What did the doctor say?”
“So-so.”
“Not worse?”
“No,” he lied.
“Then let us have another Martini,” the girl said. “You know I never drank a Martini until we met.”
“I know. But you drink them awfully well.”
“Shouldn’t you take the medicine?”
“Yes,” the Colonel said. “I should take the medicine.”
“May I give it to you?”
“Yes,” the Colonel said. “You may give it to me.”
They continued to sit at the table in the corner and some people went out, and others came in. The Colonel felt a little dizzy from the medicine and he let it ride. That’s the way it always is, he thought. To hell with it.
He saw the girl watching him and he smiled at her. It was an old smile that he had been using for fifty years, ever since he first smiled, and it was still as sound as your grandfather’s Purdey shot-gun. I guess my older brother has that, he thought. Well, he could always shoot better than I could and he deserves it.