“Let’s skip him,” the Colonel said.
“When we have so little time, Richard. He is rather a waste of time.”
“I was looking at him as at a drawing by Goya. Faces are pictures too.”
“Look at mine and I will look at yours. Please skip the man. He didn’t come here to do anyone any harm.”
“Let me look at your face and you not look at mine.”
“No,” she said. “That’s not fair. I have to remember yours all week.”
“And what do I do?” the Colonel asked her.
Ettore came over, unable to avoid conspiracy and, having gathered his intelligence rapidly and as a Venetian should, said,
“My colleague who works at his hotel, says that he drinks three or four highballs, and then writes vastly and fluently far into the night.”
“I dare say that makes marvelous reading.”
“I dare say,” Ettore said. “But it was hardly the method of Dante.”
“Dante was another vieux con,” the Colonel said. “I mean as a man. Not as a writer.”
“I agree,” Ettore said. “I think you will find no one, outside of Firenze, who has studied his life who would not agree.”
“Eff Florence,” the Colonel said.
“A difficult maneuver,” Ettore said. “Many have attempted it but very few have succeeded. Why do you dislike it, my Colonel?”
