''I don't think you can love very much after you, yourself, are dead,'' the Colonel said.
He started to eat the artichoke, taking a leaf at a time, and dipping them, heavy side down, into the deep saucer of sauce vinaigrette.
''I don't know whether you can either,'' the girl said. ''But I will try.
Don't you feel better to be loved?''
''Yes,'' the Colonel said. ''I feel as though I were out on some bare-assed hill where it was too rocky to dig, and the rocks all solid, but with nothing jutting, and no bulges, and all of a sudden instead of being there naked, I was armoured.
Armoured and the eighty-eights not there.''
''You should tell that to our writer friend with the craters of the moon face so he could write it tonight.''
''I ought to tell it to Dante if he was around,'' the Colonel, suddenly gone as rough as the sea when a line squall comes up, said. ''I'd tell him what I'd do if I were shifted, or ascended, into an armoured vehicle under such circumstances.''
Just then the Barone Alvarito came into the dining room.
He was looking for them and, being a hunter, he saw them instantly.
He came over to the table and kissed Renata's hand, saying, ''Ciao, Renata.'' He was almost tall, beautifully built in his town clothes, and he was the shyest man the Colonel had ever known.
He was not shy from ignorance, nor from being ill at ease, nor from any defect.
He was basically shy, as certain animals are, such as the Bongo that you will never see in the jungle, and that must be hunted with dogs.
''My Colonel,'' he said. He smiled as only the truly shy can smile.
It was not the easy grin of the confident, nor the quick slashing smile of the extremely durable and the wicked. It had no relation with the poised, intently used smile of the courtesan or the politician.
It was the strange, rare smile which rises from the deep, dark pit, deeper than a well, deep as a deep mine, that is within them.
''I can only stay a moment.
I came to tell you that it looks quite good for the shoot.
The ducks are coming in heavily from the north.
There are many big ducks.
The ones you like,'' he smiled again.
''Sit down Alvarito.
Please.''
''No,'' the Barone Alvarito said. ''We can meet at the Garage at two-thirty if you like?
You have your car?''
''Yes.''
''That makes it very good.
Leaving at that hour, we will have time to see the ducks in the evening.''
''Splendid,'' the Colonel said.
''Ciao, then, Renata.
Good-bye, my Colonel.
Until two-thirty.''
''We knew each other as children,'' the girl said. ''But he was about three years older.
He was born very old.''
''Yes. I know.
He is a good friend of mine.''
''Do you think your compatriot has looked him up in Baedeker?''
''I wouldn't know,'' the Colonel said. ''Gran Maestro,'' he asked, ''did my illustrious compatriot look up the Barone in Baedeker?''
''Truly, my Colonel. I have not seen him pull his Baedeker during the meal.''
''Give him full marks,'' the Colonel said. ''Now look. I believe that the Valpolicella is better when it is newer.
It is not a grand vin and bottling it and putting years on it only adds sediment.
Do you agree?''
''I agree.''
''Then what should we do?''
''My Colonel, you know that in a Great Hotel, wine must cost money.
You cannot get Pinard at the Ritz.
But I suggest that we get several fiascos of the good. You can say they come from the Contessa Renata's estates and are a gift.
Then I will have them decanted for you.
This way, we will have better wine and make an impressive saving.
I will explain it to the manager if you like.