Эрнест Хемингуэй - Across the River and Into the Trees

'Quite hungry, I suppose. But thank you for being good for so long a time.'

'It was easy,' the Colonel told her in Italian.

They sat there at the table and watched the early stormy light over the Canal. The grey had turned to a yellow–grey now, with the sun, and the waves were working against the outgoing tide.

'Mummy says she can't live here too long at any time because there are no trees,' the girl said. 'That's why she goes to the country.'

'That's why everyone goes to the country,' the Colonel said. 'We could plant a few trees if we found a place with a big enough garden.'

'I like Lombardy poplars and plane trees the best, but I am still quite uneducated.'

'I like them, and cypresses and chestnut trees. The real chestnut and the horse–chestnut. But you will never see trees, Daughter, until we go to America. Wait till you see a white pine or a ponderosa pine.'

'Will we see them when we make the long trip and stop at all the filling stations or comfort stations or whatever they are called?'

'Lodges and Tourist Camps,' the Colonel said. 'Those others we stop at; but not for the night.'

'I want so much for us to roll up to a comfort station and plank down my money and tell them to fill her up and check the oil, Mac, the way it is in American books or in the films.'

'That's a filling station.'

'Then what is a comfort station?'

'Where you go, you know―'

'Oh,' the girl said and blushed. 'I'm sorry.'

'I want to learn American so much. But I suppose I shall say barbarous things the way you do sometimes in Italian.'

'It is an easy language. The further West you go the straighter and the easier it becomes.'

The Gran Maestro brought the breakfast and the odour of it, although it did not spread through the room, due to the silver covers on the dishes, came to them steady and as broiled bacon and kidneys, with the dark lustreless smell of grilled mushrooms added.

'It looks lovely,' the girl said. 'Thank you very much, Gran Maestro . Should I talk American?' she asked the Colonel. She extended her hand to the Gran Maestro lightly, and fastly, so that it darted as a rapier does, and said, 'Put it there, Pal. This grub is tops.'

The Gran Maestro said, 'Thank you, my lady.'

'Should I have said chow instead of grub?' the girl asked the Colonel.

'They are really interchangeable.'

'Did they talk like that out West when you were a boy? What would you say at breakfast?'

'Breakfast was served, or offered up, by the cook. He would say, "Come and get it, you sons of bitches, or I'll throw it away."'

'I must learn that for in the country. Sometimes when we have the British Ambassador and his dull wife for dinner I will teach the footman, who will announce dinner, to say, "Come and get it, you sons of bitches, or we will throw it away."'

'He'd devaluate,' the Colonel said. 'At any rate, it would be an interesting experiment.'

'Tell me something I can say in true American to the pitted one if he comes in. I will just whisper it in his ear as though I were making a rendezvous, as they did in the old days.'

'It would depend on how he looks. If he is very dejected looking, you might whisper to him, "Listen, Mac. You hired out to be tough, didn't you?"'

'That's lovely,' she said, and repeated it in a voice she had learned from Ida Lupino. 'Can I say it to the Gran Maestro ?'

'Sure. Why not. Gran Maestro !'

The Gran Maestro came over and leaned forward attentively.

'Listen, Mac. You hired out to be tough, didn't you?' the girl hard–worded him.

'I did indeed,' the Gran Maestro said. 'Thank you for stating it so exactly.'

'If that one comes in and you wish to speak to him after he has eaten, just whisper in his ear, "Wipe the egg off your chin, Jack, and straighten up and fly right."'

'I'll remember it and I'll practise it at home.'

'What are we going to do after breakfast?'

'Should we go up and look at the picture and see if it is of any value; I mean any good; in the daylight?'

'Yes,' the Colonel said.

Upstairs the room was already done and the Colonel, who had anticipated a possible messiness of locale, was pleased.

'Stand by it once,' he said. Then remembered to add, 'Please.'

She stood by it, and he looked at it from where he had looked at it last night.

'There's no comparison, of course,' he said. 'I don't mean likeness. The likeness is excellent.'

'Was there supposed to be a comparison?' the girl asked, and swung her head back and stood there with the black sweater of the portrait.

'Of course not. But last night, and at first light, I talked to the portrait as though it were you.'

'That was nice of you and shows it has served some useful purpose.'

They were lying now on the bed and the girl said to him, 'Don't you ever close windows?'

'No. Do you?'

'Only when it rains.'

'How much alike are we?'

'I don't know. We never had much of a chance to find out.'

'We've never had a fair chance. But we've had enough of a chance for me to know.'

'And when you know what the hell have you got?' the Colonel asked.

'I don't know. Something better than there is, I suppose.'

'Sure. We ought to try for that. I don't believe in limited objectives. Sometimes you're forced to, though.'

'What is your great sorrow?'

'Other people's orders,' he said. 'What's yours?'

'You.'

'I don't want to be a sorrow. I've been a sorry son of a bitch many times. But I never was anybody's sorrow.'

'Well you are mine now.'

'All right,' he said. 'We'll take it that way.'

'You're nice to take it that way. You're very kind this morning. I'm so ashamed about how things are. Please hold me very close and let's not talk, or think, about how things might have been different.'

'Daughter, that's one of the few things I know how to do.'

'You know many, many things. Don't say such a thing.'

'Sure,' the Colonel said. 'I know how to fight forwards and how to fight backwards and what else?'

'About pictures and about books and about life.'

'That's easy. You just look at the pictures without prejudice, and you read the books with as open a mind as you have, and you live life.'

'Don't take off your tunic, please.'

'All right.'

'You do anything when I say please.'

'I have done things without.'

'Not very often.'

'No,' the Colonel agreed. 'Please is a pretty word.'

'Please, please, please.'

' Per Piacere . It means for pleasure. I wish we always talked Italian.'

'We could in the dark. Although there are things that say better in English.

'I love you my last true and only love,' she quoted. 'When lilacs last in the door–yard bloomed. And out of the cradle endlessly rocking. And come and get it, you sons of bitches, or I'll throw it away. You don't want those in other languages, do you, Richard?'

'No.'

'Kiss me again, please.'

'Unnecessary please.'

'I would probably end up as an unnecessary please myself. That is the good thing about you going to die that you can't leave me.'

'That's a little rough,' the Colonel said. 'Watch your beautiful mouth a little on that.'

'I get rough when you get rough,' she said. 'You wouldn't want me to be completely otherwise?'

'I would not want you to be in any way other than you are and I love you truly, finally and for good.'

'You say nice things very clearly sometimes. What was it happened with you and your wife, if I may ask?'

'She was an ambitious woman and I was away too much.'

'You mean she went away, from ambition, when you only were away from duty?'