Эрнест Хемингуэй - Across the River and Into the Trees

'Domenico,' he said.

'Yes.'

'I have something here in an envelope that you can put in the safe. It may be called for either by myself, in person, or in writing, or by the person you have just put that call through to. Would you like that in writing?'

'No. It would be unnecessary.'

'But what about you, boy? You're not immortal, are you?'

'Fairly so,' the concierge told him. 'But I will put it in writing, and after me, comes the Manager and the Assistant Manager.'

'Both good men,' the Colonel agreed.

'Wouldn't you like to sit down, my Colonel?'

'No. Who sits down except men and women in change of life hotels? Do you sit down?'

'No.'

'I can rest on my feet, or against a God–damned tree. My countrymen sit down, or lie down, or fall down. Give them a few energy crackers to stall their whimpers.'

He was talking too much to regain confidence quickly.

'Do they really have energy crackers?'

'Sure. It has something in it that keeps you from getting excited. It's like the atomic bomb, only played backwards.'

'I can't believe it.'

'We have the most terrific military secrets that one General's wife ever told another. Energy crackers is the least of it. Next time we will give all Venice botulism from 56,000 feet. There's nothing to it,' the Colonel explained. 'They give you anthrax, and you give them botulism.'

'But it will be horrible.'

'It will be worse than that,' the Colonel assured him. 'This isn't classified. It's all been published. And while it goes on you can hear Margaret, if you tune in right, singing the Star Spangled Banner on the radio. I think that could be arranged. The voice I would not describe as a big one. Not as we know voices who have heard the good ones in our time. But everything is a trick now. The radio can almost make the voice. And the Star Spangled Banner is fool–proof until towards the last.'

'Do you think they will drop anything here?'

'No. They never have.'

The Colonel, who was four star general now, in his wrath and in his agony and in his need for confidence, but secured temporarily through the absorption of the tablets, said, ' Ciao , Domenico,' and left the Gritti.

He figured it took twelve and one half minutes to reach the place where his true love would probably arrive a little late. He walked it carefully and at the speed he should walk it. The bridges were all the same.

His true love was at the table at the exact time that she said she would be. She was as beautiful as always In the hard, morning light that came across the flooded square, and she said, 'Please, Richard. Are you all right? Please?'

'Sure,' the Colonel said. 'You wonder beauty.'

'Did you go to all our places in the market?'

'Only a few of them. I did not go where they have the wild ducks.'

'Thank you.'

'For nothing,' the Colonel said. 'I never go there when we are not together.'

'Don't you think I should go to the shoot?'

'No. I am quite sure. Alvarito would have asked you if he wanted you.'

'He might not have asked me because he wanted me.'

'That's true,' the Colonel said, and pondered that for two seconds. 'What do you want for breakfast?'

'Breakfast is worthless here, and I don't like the square when it is flooded. It is sad and the pigeons have no place to alight. It is only really fun towards the last when the children play. Should we go and have breakfast at the Gritti?'

'Do you want to?'

'Yes.'

'Good. We'll have breakfast there. I've had mine already.'

'Really?'

'I'll have some coffee and hot rolls, and only feel them with my fingers. Are you awfully hungry?'

'Awfully,' she said, truly.

'We'll give breakfast the full treatment,' the Colonel said. 'You'll wish you had never heard of breakfast.'

As they walked, with the wind at their back, and her hair blowing better than any banner, she asked him, holding close, 'Do you still love me in the cold, hard Venice light of morning? It is really cold and hard, isn't it?'

'I love you and it is cold and hard.'

'I loved you all night when I was ski–ing in the dark.'

'How do you do that?'

'It is the same runs except that it is dark and the snow is dark instead of light. You ski the same; controlled and good.'

'Did you ski all night? That would be many runs.'

'No. Afterwards I slept soundly and well and I woke happy. You were with me and you were asleep like a baby.'

'I wasn't with you and I was not asleep.'

'You're with me now,' she said and held close and tight.

'And we are almost there.'

'Yes.'

'Have I told you, yet, properly, that I love you?'

'You told me. But tell me again.'

'I love you,' he said. 'Take it frontally and formally please.'

'I take it anyway you want as long as it is true.'

'That's the proper attitude,' he said. 'You good, brave, lovely girl. Turn your hair sideways once on top of this bridge and let it blow obliquely.'

He had made a concession, with obliquely, instead of saying, correctly, oblique.

'That's easy,' she said. 'Do you like it?'

He looked and saw the profile and the wonder early morning colour and her chest upstanding in the black sweater and her eyes in the wind and he said, 'Yes, I like it.'

'I'm very glad,' she said.

At the Gritti, the Gran Maestro seated them at the table which was beside the window that looked out on the Grand Canal. There was no one else in the dining–room.

The Gran Maestro was festive and well with the morning. He took his ulcers day by day, and his heart the same way. When they did not hurt he did not hurt either.

'Your pitted compatriot eats in bed at his hotel, my colleague tells me,' he confided to the Colonel. 'We may have a few Belgians. "The bravest of these were the Belgians,"' he quoted. 'There is a pair of pescecani from you know where. But they are exhausted and I believe they will eat, as pigs, in their room.'

'An excellent situation report,' the Colonel said. 'Our problem, Gran Maestro , is that I have already eaten in my room as pitted does and as the pescecani will. But this lady―'

'Young girl,' interrupted the Gran Maestro with his whole–face smile. He was feeling very good since it was a completely new day.

'This very young lady wants a breakfast to end breakfasts.'

'I understand,' the Gran Maestro said, and he looked at Renata and his heart rolled over as a porpoise does in the sea. It is a beautiful movement and only a few people in this world can feel it and accomplish it.

'What do you want to eat, Daughter?' the Colonel asked, looking at her early morning, un–retouched dark beauty.

'Everything.'

'Would you give any suggestions?'

'Tea instead of coffee and whatever the Gran Maestro can salvage.'

'It won't be salvage, Daughter,' said the Gran Maestro .

'I'm the one who calls her Daughter.'

'I said it honestly,' the Gran Maestro said. 'We can make or fabricar rognons grilled with champignons dug by people I know. Or, raised in damp cellars. There can be an omelet with truffles dug by pigs of distinction. There can be real Canadian bacon from maybe Canada, even.'

'Wherever that is,' the girl said happily and unillusioned.

'Wherever that is,' said the Colonel seriously. 'And I know damn well where it is.'

'I think we should stop the jokes now and get to the breakfast.'

'If it is not un–maidenly I think so too.'

'Mine is a decanted flask of the Valpolicella.'

'Nothing else?'

'Bring me one ration of the alleged Canadian bacon,' the Colonel said.

He looked at the girl, since they were alone now, and he said, 'How are you, my dearest?'