“Do you dislike him?”
“No. I simply think he is a British General. Whatever that means. And don’t you use the term.”
“But he beat General Rommel.”
“Yes. And you don’t think any one else had softened him up? And who can’t win with fifteen to one? When we fought here, when we were boys, the Gran Maestro and I, we won for one whole year with three to four against one and we won each one. Three main bad ones. That is why we can make jokes and not be solemn. We had something over one hundred and forty thousand dead that year. That is why we can speak gaily and without pomposity.”
“It is such a sad science; if it is a science,” the girl said. “I hate the war monuments, though I respect them.”
“I do not like them either. Nor the process which led to their construction. Have you ever seen that end of the thing?”
“No. But I would like to know.”
“Better not know,” the Colonel said. “Eat your steak before it gets cold and forgive me for talking about my trade.”
“I hate it but I love it.”
“I believe we share the same emotions,” the Colonel said. “But what is my pitted compatriot thinking three tables down?”
“About his next book, or about what it says in Baedeker.”
“Should we go and ride in a gondola in the wind after we have dined?”
