»Now,» the girl said. »We are in our home and I love you. Please kiss me and put all love into it.»
The Colonel held her close, with her head thrown back and kissed her until there was nothing left of the kiss but desperation.
»I love you.»
»Whatever that means,» she interrupted.
»I love you and I know whatever that means. The picture is lovely. But there is no word for what you are.»
»Wild?» she said. »Or careless or unkempt?»
»No.»
»The last was one of the first words I learned from my governess. It means you do not comb your hair enough. Neglectful is when you do not brush one hundred strokes at night.»
»I’m going to run my hand through it and make it unkempter still.»
»Your hurt hand?»
»Yes.»
»We’re sitting on the wrong sides for that. Change over.»
»Good. That is a sensible order couched in simple language and easily understood.»
It was fun moving over, trying not to disturb the balance of the gondola, but having to trim again carefully.
»Now,» she said. »But hold me tightly with the other arm.»
»You know just what you want?»
»I do indeed. Is it un-maidenly? I learned that word too from my governess.»
»No,» he said. »It’s lovely. Pull up the blanket good and feel that wind.»
»It’s from the high mountains.»
»Yes. And beyond there it’s from somewhere else.»
The Colonel heard the slap of the waves, and he felt the wind come sharply, and the rough familiarity of the blanket, and then he felt the girl cold-warm and lovely and with upraised breasts that his left hand coasted lightly over. Then he ran his bad hand through her hair once, twice, and three times and then he kissed her, and it was worse than desperation.
»Please,» she said, from almost underneath the blanket. »Let me kiss now.»
»No,» he said. »Me again.»
The wind was very cold and lashed their faces but under the blanket there was no wind nor nothing; only his ruined hand that searched for the island in the great river with the high steep banks.
»That’s it,» she said.
He kissed her then and he searched for the island, finding it and losing it, and then finding it for good. For good and for bad, he thought, and for good and for all.
»My darling,» he said. »My well beloved. Please.»
»No. Just hold me very tight and hold the high ground, too.»
The Colonel said nothing, because he was assisting, or had made an act of presence, at the only mystery that he believed in except the occasional bravery of man.
»Please don’t move,» the girl said. »Then move a great amount.»
The Colonel, lying under the blanket in the wind, knowing it is only what man does for woman that he retains, except what he does for his fatherland or his motherland, however you get the reading, proceeded.
»Please darling,» the girl said. »I don’t think I can stand it.»
»Don’t think of anything. Don’t think of anything at all.»
»I’m not.»
»Don’t think.»
»Oh please let’s not talk.»
»Is it right?»
»You know.»
»You’re sure.»
»Oh please not talk. Please.»
Yes, he thought. Please and please again.
She said nothing, and neither did he, and when the great bird had flown far out of the closed window of the gondola, and was lost and gone, neither of them said anything. He held her head lightly with his good arm and the other arm held the high ground now.
»Please put it where it should be,» she said. »Your hand.»
»Should we?»
»No. Just hold me tight and try to love me true.»
»I love you true,» he said, and just then the gondola turned to the left, quite sharply, and the wind was on his right cheek, and he said, with his old eyes catching the outline of the Palace where they turned, and noting it, »You’re in the lee now, Daughter.»
»But it is too soon now. Don’t you know how a woman feels?»
»No. Only what you tell me.»
»Thank you for the you. But don’t you really know?»
»No. I never asked, I guess.»
»Guess now,» she said. »And please wait until after we have gone under the second bridge.»
»Take a glass of this,» the Colonel said, reaching accurately and well for the champagne bucket with the ice, and uncorking the bottle the Gran Maestro had uncorked, and then placed a common wine cork in.
»This is good for you, Daughter. It is good for all the ills that all of us have, and for all sadness and indecision.»
»I have none of those,» she said, speaking grammatically as her governess had taught her. »I am just a woman, or a girl, or whatever that is, doing whatever it is she should not do. Let’s do it again, please, now I am in the lee.»
»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’s 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 Maréchal 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?»
CHAPTER 14
»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, tomorrow.»
»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
