“I love you.”
“Whatever that means,” she interrupted.
“I love you and I know whatever that means. The picture is lovely. But there is no word for what you are.”
“Wild?” she said. “Or careless or unkempt?”
“No.”
“The last was one of the first words I learned from my governess. It means you do not comb your hair enough. Neglectful is when you do not brush one hundred strokes at night.”
“I’m going to run my hand through it and make it unkempter still.”
“Your hurt hand?”
“Yes.”
“We’re sitting on the wrong sides for that. Change over.”
“Good. That is a sensible order couched in simple language and easily understood.”
It was fun moving over, trying not to disturb the balance of the gondola, but having to trim again carefully.
“Now,” she said. “But hold me tightly with the other arm.”
“You know just what you want?”
“I do indeed. Is it un-maidenly? I learned that word too from my governess.”
“No,” he said. “It’s lovely. Pull up the blanket good and feel that wind.”
“It’s from the high mountains.”
“Yes. And beyond there it’s from somewhere else.”
The Colonel heard the slap of the waves, and he felt the wind come sharply, and the rough familiarity of the blanket, and then he felt the girl cold-warm and lovely and with upraised breasts that his left hand coasted lightly over. Then he ran his bad hand through her hair once, twice, and three times and then he kissed her, and it was worse than desperation.
“Please,” she said, from almost underneath the blanket. “Let me kiss now.”
“No,” he said. “Me again.”
The wind was very cold and lashed their faces but under the blanket there was no wind nor nothing; only his ruined hand that searched for the island in the great river with the high steep banks.
“That’s it,” she said.
He kissed her then and he searched for the island, finding it and losing it, and then finding it for good. For good and for bad, he thought, and for good and for all.
“My darling,” he said. “My well beloved. Please.”
“No. Just hold me very tight and hold the high ground, too.”
The Colonel said nothing, because he was assisting, or had made an act of presence, at the only mystery that he believed in except the occasional bravery of man.
“Please don’t move,” the girl said. “Then move a great amount.”
The Colonel, lying under the blanket in the wind, knowing it is only what man does for woman that he retains, except what he does for his fatherland or his motherland, however you get the reading, proceeded.
“Please darling,” the girl said. “I don’t think I can stand it.”
“Don’t think of anything. Don’t think of anything at all.”
“I’m not.”
“Don’t think.”
“Oh please let’s not talk.”
“Is it right?”
“You know.”
“You’re sure.”
“Oh please not talk. Please.”
Yes, he thought. Please and please again.
She said nothing, and neither did he, and when the great bird had flown far out of the closed window of the gondola, and was lost and gone, neither of them said anything. He held her head lightly with his good arm and the other arm held the high ground now.
“Please put it where it should be,” she said. “Your hand.”
“Should we?”
“No. Just hold me tight and try to love me true.”
“I love you true,” he said, and just then the gondola turned to the left, quite sharply, and the wind was on his right cheek, and he said, with his old eyes catching the outline of the Palace where they turned, and noting it, “You’re in the lee now, Daughter.”
“But it is too soon now. Don’t you know how a woman feels?”
“No. Only what you tell me.”
“Thank you for the you. But don’t you really know?”
“No. I never asked, I guess.”
“Guess now,” she said. “And please wait until after we have gone under the second bridge.”
“Take a glass of this,” the Colonel said, reaching accurately and well for the champagne bucket with the ice, and uncorking the bottle the Gran Maestro had uncorked, and then placed a common wine cork in.