How many could you tell like that? Plenty, and what good would they do? You could tell a thousand and they would not prevent war. People would say we are not fighting the krauts and besides the cat did not eat me nor my brother Gordon, because he was in the Pacific. Maybe land crabs ate Gordon. Or maybe he just deliquesced.
In Hurtgen they just froze up hard; and it was so cold they froze up with ruddy faces. Very strange. They all were gray and yellow like wax-works, in the summer. But once the winter really came they had ruddy faces.
Real soldiers never tell any one what their own dead looked like, he told the portrait. And I’m through with this whole subject. And what about that company dead up the draw? What about them, professional soldier?
They’re dead, he said. And I can hang and rattle.
Now who would join me in a glass of Valpolicella? What time do you think I should wake your opposite number, you girl? We have to get to that jewelry place. And I look forward to making jokes and to talking of the most cheerful things.
What’s cheerful, portrait? You ought to know. You’re smarter than I am, although you haven’t been around as much.
All right, canvas girl, the Colonel told her, not saying it aloud, we’ll drop the whole thing and in eleven minutes I will wake the live girl up, and we will go out on the town, and be cheerful and leave you here to be wrapped.
I didn’t mean to be rude. I was just joking roughly. I don’t wish to be rude ever because I will be living with you from now on. I hope, he added, and drank a glass of the wine.
CHAPTER XXXVI
IT was a sharp, cold bright day, and they stood outside the window of the jeweler’s shop and studied the two small negro heads and torsos that were carved in ebony and adorned with studded jewels. One was as good as the other, the Colonel thought.
“Which do you like the best, Daughter?”
“I think the one on the right. Don’t you think he has the nicer face?”
“They both have nice faces. But I think I would rather have him attend you if it was the old days.”
“Good. We’ll take him. Let’s go in and see them. I must ask the price.”
“I will go in.”
“No, let me ask the price. They will charge me less than they would charge you. After all you are a rich American.”
“Et toi, Rimbaud?”
“You’d make an awfully funny Verlaine,” the girl told him. “We’ll be some other famous characters.”
“Go on in, Majesty, and we’ll buy the god damn jewel.”
“You wouldn’t make a very good Louis Sixteenth either.”
“I’d get up in that tumbril with you and still be able to spit.”
“Let’s forget all the tumbrils and everyone’s sorrows, and buy the small object and then we can walk to Cipriani’s and be famous people.”
Inside the shop they looked at the two heads and she asked the price, and then, there was some very rapid talk and the price was much lower. But still it was more money than the Colonel had.
“I’ll go to Cipriani’s and get some money.”
“No,” the girl said. Then to the clerk, “Put it in a box and send it to Cipriani’s and say the Colonel said to pay for it and hold it for him.”
“Please,” the clerk said. “Exactly as you say.”
They went out into the street and the sunlight and the unremitting wind.
“By the way,” the Colonel said. “Your stones are in the safe at the Gritti in your name.”
“Your stones.”
“No,” he told her, not rough, but to make her understand truly. “There are some things that a person cannot do. You know about that. You cannot marry me and I understand that, although I do not approve it.”
“Very well,” the girl said. “I understand. But would you take one for a lucky stone?”
“No. I couldn’t. They are too valuable.”
“But the portrait has value.”
“That is different.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “I suppose so. I think I begin to understand.”