Эрнест Хемингуэй - Across the River and Into the Trees

'Are there five corners to the world?'

'I don't know,' she said. 'It sounded as though there were when I said it. And now we are having run again, aren't we?'

'Yes, Daughter,' the Colonel said.

'Say it again. Just as you said it.'

'Yes, Daughter.'

'Oh,' she said. 'People must be very complicated. Please may I take your hand?'

'It's so damned ugly and I dislike looking at it.'

'You don't know about your hand.'

'That's a matter of opinion,' he said. 'I'd say you were wrong, Daughter.'

'Maybe I am wrong. But we're having fun again and whatever the bad thing was is gone now.'

'It's gone the way the mist is burned off the hollows in broken ground when the sun comes out,' the Colonel said. 'And you're the sun.'

'I want to be the moon, too.'

'You are,' the Colonel told her. 'Also any particular planet that you wish to be and I will give you an accurate location of the planet. Christ, Daughter, you can be a God–damn constellation if you like. Only that's an airplane.'

'I'll be the moon. She has many troubles, too.'

'Yes. Her sorrows come regularly. But she always fills before she wanes.'

'She looks so sad to me sometimes across the Canal, that I cannot stand it.'

'She's been around a long time,' the Colonel said.

'Do you think we should have one more Montgomery?' the girl asked and the Colonel noticed that the British were gone.

He had been noticing nothing but her lovely face. I'll get killed sometime that way, he thought. On the other hand it is a form of concentration I suppose. But it is damned careless.

'Yes,' he said. 'Why not?'

'They make me feel very good,' the girl said.

'They have a certain effect on me, too, the way Cipriani makes them.'

'Cipriani is very intelligent.'

'He's more than that. He's able.'

'Some day he'll own all Venice.'

'Not quite all,' the Colonel disagreed. 'He'll never own you.'

'No,' she said. 'Nor will anyone else unless you want me.'

'I want you, Daughter. But I don't want to own you.'

'I know it,' the girl said. 'And that's one more reason why I love you.'

'Let's get Ettore and have him call up your house. You can tell them about the portrait.'

'You are quite correct. If you want the portrait to–night, I must speak to the butler to have it wrapped and sent. I will also ask to speak to Mummy and tell her where we are dining, and, if you like, I will ask her permission.'

'No,' the Colonel said. 'Ettore, two Montgomerys, super Montgomerys, with garlic olives, not the big ones, and please call the home of this lady and let her know when you have completed the communication. And all of this as rapidly as possible.'

'Yes, my Colonel.'

'Now, Daughter, let us resume the having of the fun.'

'It was resumed when you spoke,' she said.

They were walking, now, along the right side of the street that led to the Gritti. The wind was at their backs and it blew the girl's hair forward. The wind parted her hair in the back and blew it forward about her face. They were looking in the shop windows and the girl stopped in front of the lighted window of a jewellery shop.

There were many good pieces of old jewellery in the window and they stood and looked at them and pointed out the best ones to each other, unclasping their hands to do so.

'Is there anything you really want? I could get it in the morning. Cipriani would loan me the money.'

'No,' she said. 'I do not want anything but I notice that you never give me presents.'

'You are much richer than I am. I bring you small things from the PX and I buy you drinks and meals.'

'And take me in gondolas and to lovely places in the country.'

'I never thought you wanted presents of hard stones.'

'I don't. It is just the thought of giving and then one looks at them and thinks about them when they are worn.'

'I'm learning,' the Colonel said. 'But what could I buy you on Army pay that would be like your square emeralds?'

'But don't you see. I inherited them. They came from my grandmother, and she had them from her mother who had them from her mother. Do you think it is the same to wear stones that come from dead people?'

'I never thought about it.'

'You can have them if you like, if you like stones. To me they are only something to wear like a dress from Paris. You don't like to wear your dress uniform, do you?'

'No.'

'You don't like to carry a sword, do you?'

'No, repeat, no.'

'You are not that kind of a soldier and I am not that sort of girl. But some time give me something lasting that I can wear and be happy each time I wear it.'

'I see,' the Colonel said. 'And I will.'

'You learn fast about things you do not know,' the girl said. 'And you make lovely quick decisions. I would like you to have the emeralds and you could keep them in your pocket like a lucky piece, and feel them if you were lonely.'

'I don't put my hands much in my pockets when I'm working. I usually twirl a stick, or something, or point things out with a pencil.'

'But you could put your hand in your pocket only once in a long time and feel them.'

'I'm not lonely when I'm working. I have to think too hard to ever be lonely.'

'But you are not working now.'

'No. Only preparing the best way to be overrun.'

'I'm going to give them to you anyway. I'm quite sure Mummy will understand. Also I won't need to tell her for quite a long time. She keeps no check on my things. I'm sure my maid would never tell her.'

'I don't think I should take them.'

'You should, please, to give me pleasure.'

'I'm not sure it's honourable.'

'That is like not being sure whether you are a virgin. What you do to give pleasure to another whom you love is most honourable.'

'All right,' the Colonel said. 'I will take them for better or for worse.'

'Now you say thank you,' the girl said and slipped them into his pocket as quickly and ably as a jewel thief might. 'I brought them with me because I have been thinking and deciding about this all week.'

'I thought you thought about my hand.'

'Don't be surly, Richard. And you should never be stupid. It is your hand you touch them with. Didn't you think of that?'

'No. And I was stupid. What would you like from that window?'

'I would like that small Negro with the ebony face and the turban made of chip diamonds with the small ruby on the crown of the turban. I should wear it as a pin. Everyone wore them in the old days in this city and the faces were those of their confidential servants. I have coveted this for a long time, but I wanted you to give it to me.'

'I'll send it in the morning.'

'No. Give it to me when we have lunch before you go.'

'Right,' the Colonel said.

'Now we must walk or we will be too late for dinner.'

They started to walk, arm through arm, and as they went up the first bridge the wind lashed at them.

When the twinge came, the Colonel said to himself, the hell with that.

'Richard,' the girl said. 'Put your hand in your pocket to please me and feel them.'

The Colonel did.

'They feel wonderful,' he said.

They came in, out of the wind and the cold, through the main entrance of the Gritti Palace Hotel, into the light and warmth of the lobby.

'Good evening, Contessa,' the concierge said. 'Good evening, my Colonel. It must be cold outside.'

'It is,' the Colonel said, and did not add any of the rough or obscene phrases about the extent of the cold, or the force of the wind, that he could ordinarily have employed, for their mutual pleasure when speaking, alone, with the concierge.

As they entered the long hallway that led to the big stairs and to the elevator, leaving, on your right, the entrance to the bar, the doorway on to the Grand Canal, and the entrance to the dining–room, the Gran Maestro came out of the bar.