he fought all those rear-guard actions coming back from that big Russian town. He used to fight ten, twelve, fifteen times a day. Maybe more. Afterwards, he couldn’t recognize people. Please don’t get in any gondolas with him.”
“He was always one of my great heroes.”
“Yeah. Mine too. Until Quatre Bras. Maybe it wasn’t Quatre Bras. I’m getting rusty. Give it the generic title of Waterloo.”
“Was he bad there?”
“Awful,” the Colonel told her. “Forget it. Too many rear-guard actions coming back from Moskova.”
“But they called him the bravest of the brave.”
“You can’t eat on that. You have to be that, always, and then be the smartest of the smart. Then you need a lot of stuff coming up.”
“Tell me about Paris, please. We should not make more love, I know.”
“I don’t know it. Who says it?”
“I say it because I love you.”
“All right. You said it and you love me. So we act on that. The hell with it.”
“Do you think we could once more if it would not hurt you?”
“Hurt me?” the Colonel said. “When the hell was I ever hurt?”
