ACROSS the RIVER and INTO the TREES by ERNEST HEMINGWAY

“Sure,” the Colonel said. “I’m always the last man to leave the party, fiesta I mean, not as in political party. The truly unpopular guest.”

“Should we go?”

“I thought you had made up your mind.”

“I had. But when you said it about unpopular guest it was unmade.”

“Keep it made up.”

“I can hold a decision.”

“I know. You can hold any damn thing. But, Daugh­ter, sometimes you don’t just hold. That is for stupids. Sometimes you have to switch fast.”

“I’ll switch if you like.”

“No. I think the decision was sound.”

“But won’t it be an awfully long time until morning?”

“That all depends on whether one has luck or not.”

“I should sleep well.”

“Yes,” the Colonel said. “At your age if you can’t sleep they ought to take you out and hang you.”

“Oh please.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I meant shoot you.”

“We are nearly home and you could be kind now if you wanted.”

“I’m so kind I stink. Let somebody else be kind.”

They were in front of the palace now and there it was; the palace. There was nothing to do now but pull the bell cord, or enter with the key. I’ve been lost in this place, the Colonel thought, and I was never lost in my life.

“Please kiss me good-night, kindly.”

The Colonel did and loved her so he could not bear it.

She opened the door with the key, which was in her bag. Then she was gone and the Colonel was alone, with the worn pavement, the wind, which still held in the north, and the shadows from where a light went on. He walked home.

Only tourists and lovers take gondolas, he thought. Except to cross the canal in the places where there are no bridges. I ought to go to Harry’s, probably, or some damn place. But I think I’ll go home.

CHAPTER XV

IT WAS really home, if a hotel room can be so described. His pajamas were laid on the bed. There was a bottle of Valpolicella by the reading light, and by the bed a bottle of mineral water, in an ice bucket with a glass beside it on the silver tray. The portrait had been de-framed and was placed on two chairs where he could see it from the bed.

The Paris edition of the New York Herald Tribune lay on the bed beside his three pillows. He used three pillows, as Arnaldo knew, and his extra bottle of medi­cine, not the one that he carried in his pocket, was beside the reading light. The inner doors of the armoire, the mirrored ones, were opened in such a way, that he could see the portrait from the side. His scuffed slippers were by the bed.

I’ll buy it, the Colonel said, to himself, since there was no one else there except the portrait.

He opened the Valpolicella which had been uncorked, and then re-corked, carefully, precisely, and lovingly, and poured himself a glass into the glass which was much better than any hotel should use which was faced with breakage.

“Here’s to you, Daughter,” he said. “You beauty and lovely. Do you know, that, among other things, you smell good always? You smell wonderfully even in a high wind or under a blanket or kissing goodnight. You know almost no one does, and you don’t use scent.”

She looked at him from the portrait and said nothing.

“The hell with it,” he said. “I’m not going to talk to a picture.”

What do you think went wrong tonight? he thought.

Me, I guess. Well I will try to be a good boy tomorrow all day; starting at first light.

“Daughter,” he said, and he was talking to her, and not to a picture now. “Please know I love you and that I wish to be delicate and good. And please stay with me always now.”

The picture was the same.

The Colonel took out the emeralds from his pocket, and looked at them, feeling them slide, cold and yet warm, as they take warmth, and as all good stones have warmth, from his bad hand into his good hand.

I should have put these in an envelope and locked them up, he thought. But what the effing security is there better than I can give them? I have to get these back to you fast, Daughter.

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