And yet, he thought, seeing now the little villa, close up against the water, ugly as a building you would see on the boat train from Havre or Cherbourg, coming into the banlieue before Paris as you came into town. It was over-run with badly administered trees, and not a place that you would live in if you could help it. There he lived.
They loved him for his talent, and because he was bad, and he was brave. A Jewish boy with nothing, he stormed the country with his talent, and his rhetoric. He was a more miserable character than any that I know and as mean. But the man I think of to compare him with never put the chips on the line and went to war, the Colonel thought, and Gabriele d’Annunzio (I always wondered what his real name was, he thought, because nobody is named d’Annunzio in a practical country and perhaps he was not Jewish and what difference did it make if he was or was not,) had moved through the different arms of the service as he had moved into and out of the arms of different women.
All the arms were pleasant that d’Annunzio served with and the mission was fast and easily over, except the Infantry. He remembered how d’Annunzio had lost an eye in a crash, flying as an observer, over Trieste or Pola, and how, afterwards, he had always worn a patch over it and people who did not know, for, then, no one really knew, thought it had been shot out at the Veliki or San Michele or some other bad place beyond the Carso where everyone died, or was incapacitated, that you knew. But d’Annunzio, truly, was only making heroic gestures with the other things. An Infantryman knows a strange trade, he thought; perhaps the strangest. He, Gabriele, flew, but he was not a flier. He was in the Infantry but he was not an Infantryman and it was always the same appearances.
And the Colonel remembered one time when he had stood, commanding a platoon of assault troops, while it was raining in one of the interminable winters, when the rain fell always; or at least, always when there were parades or speeches to the troops, and d’Annunzio, with his lost eye, covered by the patch, and his white face, as white as the belly of a sole, new turned over in the market, the brown side not showing, and looking thirty hours dead, was shouting, »Morire non è basta,» and the Colonel, then a lieutenant, had thought, »What the muck more do they want of us?»
But he had followed the discourse and, at the end, when the Lieutenant Colonel d’Annunzio, writer and national hero, certified and true if you must have heroes, and the Colonel did not believe in heroes, asked for a moment of silence for our glorious dead, he had stood stiffly at attention. But his platoon, who had not followed the speech, there being no loud speakers then, and they being slightly out of hearing of the orator, responded, as one man, at the pause for the moment of silence for our glorious dead, with a solid and ringing »Evviva d’ Annunzio.»
They had been addressed before by d’Annunzio after victories, and before defeats, and they knew what they should shout if there was any pause by an orator.
The Colonel, being then a lieutenant, and loving his platoon, had joined with them and uttered, with the tone of command, »Evviva d’Annunzio,» thus absolving all those who had not listened to the discourse, speech, or harangue, and attempting, in the small way a lieutenant can attempt anything, except to hold an indefensible position, or intelligently direct his own part in an attack, to share their guilt.
But now he was passing the house where the poor beat-up old boy had lived with his great, sad, and never properly loved actress, and he thought of her wonderful hands, and her so transformable face, that was not beautiful, but that gave you all love, glory, and delight and sadness; and of the way the curve of her fore-arm could break your heart, and he thought, Christ they are dead and I do not know whether either one is buried even. But I certainly hope they had fun in that house.
»Jackson,» he said, »that small villa on the left belonged to Gabriele d’Annunzio, who was a great writer.»
»Yes, sir,» said Jackson, »I’m glad to know about him. I never heard of him.»
»I’ll check you out on what he wrote if you ever want to read him,» the Colonel said. »There are some fair English translations.»
»Thank you, sir,» said Jackson. »I’d like to read him anytime I have time. He has a nice practical looking place. What did you say the name was?»
»D’Annunzio,» the Colonel said. »Writer.»
He added to himself, not wishing to confuse Jackson, nor be difficult, as he had been with the man several times that day, writer, poet, national hero, phraser of the dialectic of Fascism, macabre egotist, aviator, commander, or rider, in the first of the fast torpedo attack boats, Lieutenant Colonel of Infantry without knowing how to command a company, nor a platoon properly, the great, lovely writer of Notturno whom we respect, and jerk.
Up ahead now there was a crossing place of gondolas at the Santa Maria del Giglio and, beyond, was the wooden dock of the Gritti.
»That’s the hotel where we are stopping at, Jackson.»
The Colonel indicated the three story, rose colored, small, pleasant palace abutting on the Canal. It had been a dependence of the Grand Hotel—but now it was its own hotel and a very good one. It was probably the best hotel, if you did not wish to be fawned on, or fussed over, or over-flunkied, in a city of great hotels, and the Colonel loved it.
»It looks O.K. to me, sir,» Jackson said.
»It is O.K.,» the Colonel said.
The motor boat came gallantly up beside the piling of the dock. Every move she makes, the Colonel thought, is a triumph of the gallantry of the aging machine. We do not have war horses now like old Traveller, or Marbot’s Lysette who fought, personally, at Eylau. We have the gallantry of worn-through rods that refuse to break; the cylinder head that does not blow though it has every right to, and the rest of it.
»We’re at the dock, sir,» Jackson said.
»Where the hell else would we be, man. Jump out while I settle with this sportsman.»
He turned to the boatman and said, »That was thirty five hundred, wasn’t it?»
»Yes, my Colonel.»
»I’ll not forget about the over-age jeep engine. Take this and buy your horse some oats.»
The porter, who was taking the bags from Jackson, heard this and laughed.
»No veterinarian will ever fix his horse.»
»She still runs,» the boatman said.
»But she doesn’t win any races,» the porter said. »How are you, my Colonel?»
»I couldn’t be better,» the Colonel said. »How are all the members of the Order?»
»All members are well.»
»Good,» said the Colonel. »I will go in and see the Grand Master.»
»He is waiting for you, my Colonel.»
»Let us not keep him waiting, Jackson,» the Colonel said. »You may proceed to the lobby with this gentleman and tell them to sign me in. See the sergeant gets a room,» he said to the porter. »We’re here for the night only.»
»The Baron Alvarito was here looking for you.»
»I’ll find him at Harry’s.»
»Good, my Colonel.»
»Where is the Grand Master?»
»I’ll find him for you.»
»Tell him I’ll be in the bar.»
CHAPTER 7
THE bar was just across from the lobby of the Gritti, although lobby, the Colonel thought, was not the accurate term to describe that gracious entrance. Didn’t Giotto describe a circle, he thought? No, that was in math. What he remembered and loved best as an anecdote about that painter was: »It was easy,» said Giotto as he drew the perfect circle. Who the hell had said that and where?
»Good evening, Privy Counsellor,» he said to the barman, who was not a full paid-up member of the order but whom he did not wish to offend. »What can I do for you?»
»Drink, my Colonel.»
The Colonel looked out of the windows and the door of the bar onto the waters of the Grand Canal. He could see the big black hitching post for the gondolas and the late afternoon winter light on the wind-swept water. Across the Canal was the old Palace and a wood barge, black and broad, was coming up the Canal, her bluff bows pushing up a wave even though she had the wind behind her.
»Make it a very dry Martini,» the Colonel said. »A double.»
Just then the Grand Master came into the room. He was wearing his formal attire as a head waiter. He was truly handsome as a man should be, from the inside out, so that his smile starts from his heart, or whatever is the center of the body, and comes frankly and beautifully to the surface, which is the face.
He had a fine face with the long, straight nose of his part of the Veneto; the kind, gay, truthful eyes and the honorable white hair of his age, which was two years older than that of the Colonel.
He advanced smiling, lovingly, and yet conspiratorially, since they both shared many secrets, and he extended his hand, which was a big, long,
