Эрнест Хемингуэй - Across the River and Into the Trees

'Where is the island now and in what river?'

'You are making the discovery. I am only the unknown country.'

'Not too unknown,' the Colonel said.

'Please don't be rude,' the girl said. 'And please attack gently and with the same attack as before.'

'It's no attack,' the Colonel said. 'It is something else.'

'Whatever it is, whatever it is, while I'm still in the lee.'

'Yes,' the Colonel said. 'Yes, now if you want, or will accept from kindness.'

'Please, yes.'

She talks like a gentle cat, though the poor cats cannot speak, the Colonel thought. But then he stopped thinking and he did not think for a long time.

The gondola now was in one of the secondary canals. When it had turned from the Grand Canal, the wind had swung it so the gondoliere had to shift all his weight as ballast and the Colonel and the girl had shifted too, under the blanket, with the wind getting under the edge of the blanket; wildly.

They had not spoken for a long time and the Colonel had noted that the gondola had only inches free in passing under the last bridge.

'How are you, Daughter?'

'I'm quite lovely.'

'Do you love me?'

'Please don't ask such silly things.'

'The tide is very high and we only just made that last bridge.'

'I think I know where we are going. I was born here.'

'I've made mistakes in my home town,' the Colonel said. 'Being born there isn't everything.'

'It is very much,' the girl said. 'You know that. Please hold me very tightly so we can be a part of each other for a little while.'

'We can try,' the Colonel said.

'Couldn't I be you?'

'That's awfully complicated. We could try of course.'

'I'm you now,' she said. 'And I just took the city of Paris.'

'Jesus, Daughter,' he said. 'You've got an awful lot of problems on your hands. The next thing, they will parade the twenty–eighth division through.'

'I don't care.'

'I do.'

'Were they not good?'

'Sure. They had fine commanders, too. But they were National Guard and hard luck. What you call a T.S. division. Get your T.S. slip from the chaplain.'

'I understand none of those things.'

'They aren't worth explaining,' the Colonel said.

'Will you tell me some true things about Paris? I love it so much and when I think of you taking it, then, it is as though I were riding in this gondola with Marechal Ney.'

'A no good job,' the Colonel said. 'Anyway, not after he fought all those rear–guard actions coming back from that big Russian town. He used to fight ten, twelve, fifteen times a day. Maybe more. Afterwards, he couldn't recognize people. Please don't get in any gondolas with him.'

'He was always one of my great heroes.'

'Yeah. Mine too. Until Quatre Bras. Maybe it wasn't Quatre Bras. I'm getting rusty. Give it the generic title of Waterloo.'

'Was he bad there?'

'Awful,' the Colonel told her. 'Forget it. Too many rear–guard actions coming back from Moskova.'

'But they called him the bravest of the brave.'

'You can't eat on that. You have to be that, always, and then be the smartest of the smart. Then you need a lot of stuff coming up.'

'Tell me about Paris, please. We should not make more love, I know.'

'I don't know it. Who says it?'

'I say it because I love you.'

'All right. You said it and you love me. So we act on that. The hell with it.'

'Do you think we could once more if it would not hurt you?'

'Hurt me?' the Colonel said. 'When the hell was I ever hurt?'

'Please don't be bad,' she said, pulling the blanket over them both. 'Please drink a glass of this with me. You know you've been hurt.'

'Exactly,' the Colonel said. 'Let's forget it.'

'All right,' she said. 'I learned that word, or those two words from you. We have forgotten it.'

'Why do you like the hand?' the Colonel asked, placing it where he should.

'Please don't pretend to be stupid and please let's not think of anything, or anything, or anything.'

'I am stupid,' the Colonel said. 'But I won't think of anything or anything nor of nothing nor of his brother, to–morrow.'

'Please be good and kind.'

'I will be. And I will tell you, now, a military secret. Top Secret equals British Most Secret. I love you.'

'That's nice,' she said. 'And you put it nicely.'

'I'm nice,' the Colonel said and checked on the bridge that was coming up and saw there was clearance. 'That's the first thing people notice about me.'

'I always use the wrong words,' the girl said. 'Please just love me. I wish it was me who could love you.'

'You do.'

'Yes, I do,' she said. 'With all my heart.'

They were going with the wind now and they were both tired.

'Do you think―'

'I don't think,' the girl said.

'Well try and think.'

'I will.'

'Drink a glass of this.'

'Why not? It's very good.'

It was. There was still ice in the bucket and the wine was cold and clear.

'Can I stay at the Gritti?'

'No.'

'Why not?'

'It wouldn't be right. For them. Nor you. The hell with me.'

'Then I suppose I should go home.'

'Yes,' the Colonel said. 'That is the logical supposition.'

'That is an awful way to say a sad thing. Can't we even pretend some things?'

'No. I'll take you home and you sleep good and well and to–morrow we will meet where and when you say.'

'May I call the Gritti?'

'Of course. I'll always be awake. Will you call when you are awake?'

'Yes. But why do you always wake so early?'

'It is a business habit.'

'Oh, I wish you were not in that business and that you were not going to die.'

'So do I,' said the Colonel. 'But I'm getting out of the business.'

'Yes,' she said, sleepily and comfortably. 'Then we go to Rome and get the clothes.'

'And live happily ever after.'

'Please don't,' she said. 'Please, please, don't. You know I made the resolution not to cry.'

'You're crying now,' the Colonel said. 'What the hell have you got to lose on that resolution?'

'Take me home, please.'

'That's what I was doing in the first place,' the Colonel told her.

'Be kind once first.'

'I will,' the Colonel said.

After they, or the Colonel, rather, had paid the gondoliere who was unknowing, yet knowing all; solid, sound, respectful and trustworthy; they walked into the Piazzetta and then across the great, cold, wind–swept square that was hard and old under their feet. They walked holding close and hard in their sorrow and their happiness.

'This is the place where the German shot the pigeons,' the girl said.

'We probably killed him,' the Colonel said. 'Or his brother. Maybe we hanged him. I wouldn't know. I'm not in C.I.D.'

'Do you love me still on these water–worn, cold and old stones?'

'Yes. I'd like to spread a bed roll here and prove it.'

'That would be more barbarous than the pigeon shooter.'

'I'm barbarous,' the Colonel said.

'Not always.'

'Thank you for the not always.'

'We turn here.'

'I think I know that. When are they going to tear that damned Cinema Palace down and put up a real cathedral? That's what T5 Jackson wants.'

'When someone brings Saint Mark back another time under a load of pork from Alexandria.'

'That was a Torcello boy.'

'You're a Torcello boy.'

'Yes. I'm a Basso Piave boy and a Grappa boy straight here from Pertica. I'm a Pasubio boy, too, if you know what that means. It was worse just to live there than to fight anywhere else. In the platoon they used to share anyone's gonococci brought from Schio and carried in a match–box. They used to share this just so they could leave because it was intolerable.'

'But you stayed.'

'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.'