“Please don’t ask such silly things.”
“The tide is very high and we only just made that last bridge.”
“I think I know where we are going. I was born here.”
“I’ve made mistakes in my home town,” the Colonel said. “Being born there isn’t everything.”
“It is very much,” the girl said. “You know that. Please hold me very tightly so we can be a part of each other for a little while.”
“We can try,” the Colonel said.
“Couldn’t I be you?”
“That’s awfully complicated. We could try of course.”
“I’m you now,” she said. “And I just took the city of Paris.”
“Jesus, Daughter,” he said. “You’ve got an awful lot of problems on your hands. The next thing, they will parade the twenty-eighth division through.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
“Were they not good?”
“Sure. They had fine commanders, too. But they were National Guard and hard luck. What you call a T.S. division. Get your T.S. slip from the Chaplain.”
“I understand none of those things.”
“They aren’t worth explaining,” the Colonel said.
“Will you tell me some true things about Paris? I love it so much and when I think of you taking it, then, it is as though I were riding in this gondola with Maréchal Ney.”
“A no good job,” the Colonel said. “Anyway, not after
