''I agree,'' the Colonel agreed. ''But you should not use your own money on such a project.''
''I took a chance.
We have both taken many.
The gin was 3200 lire and is legitimate.
The Campari was 800.''
''You're a very good boy,'' the Colonel told him. ''How were the ducks?''
''My wife still speaks of them.
We had never had wild ducks, since they are of such expense, and outside of our way of life.
But one of our neighbors told her how to prepare them and these same neighbors ate them with us.
I never knew that anything could be so wonderful to eat.
When your teeth close on the small slice of meat it is an almost unbelievable delight.''
''I think so, too. There is nothing lovelier to eat than those fat iron-curtain ducks.
You know their fly-way is through the great grain fields of the Danube.
This is a splinter flight we have here, but they always come the same way since before there were shot-guns.''
''I know nothing about shooting for, sport,'' the waiter said. ''We were too poor.''
''But many people without money shoot in the Veneto.''
''Yes. Of course.
One hears them shoot all night.
But we were poorer than that.
We were poorer than you can know, my Colonel.''
''I think I can know.''
''Perhaps,'' the waiter said. ''My wife also saved all the feathers and she asked me to thank you.''
''If we have any luck day after tomorrow, we'll get plenty.
The big ducks with the green heads.
Tell your wife, with luck, there will be good eating ducks, fat as pigs with what they have eaten from the Russians, and with beautiful feathers.''
''How do you feel about the Russians, if it is not indiscreet to ask, my Colonel?''
''They are our potential enemy.
So, as a soldier, I am prepared to fight them.
But I like them very much and I have never known finer people nor people more as we are.''
''I have never had the good fortune to know them.''
''You will, boy.
You will.
Unless the Honorable Pacciardi stops them on the line of the Piave, which is a river which no longer contains water.
It has been syphoned off for hydro-electric projects.
Perhaps the Honorable Pacciardi will fight there.
But I do not think he will fight for long.''
''I do not know the Honorable Pacciardi.''
''I know him,'' said the Colonel.
''Now ask them to ring Harry's and see if the Contessa is there.
If not, have them ring the house again.''
The Colonel took the drink Arnaldo, the glass-eyed waiter, made him.
He did not want it, and he knew that it was bad for him.
But he took it with his old wild-boar truculence, as he had taken everything all of his life, and he moved, still cat-like when he moved, although it was an old cat now, over to the open window and looked out on the great Canal which was now becoming as grey as though Degas had painted it on one of his greyest days.
''Thanks very much for the drink,'' the Colonel said, and Arnaldo, who was talking into the telephone, nodded and smiled his glass-eyed smile.
I wish he did not have to have that glass eye, the Colonel thought. He only loved people, he thought, who had fought or been mutilated.
Other people were fine and you liked them and were good friends; but you only felt true tenderness and love for those who had been there and had received the castigation that everyone receives who goes there long enough.
So I'm a sucker for crips, he thought, drinking the unwanted drink. And any son of a bitch who has been hit solidly, as every man will be if he stays, then I love him.
Yes, his other, good, side said. You love them. I'd rather not love anyone, the Colonel thought.
I'd rather have fun.
And fun, his good side said to him, you have no fun when you do not love.