“Breakfast is worthless here, and I don’t like the square when it is flooded. It is sad and the pigeons have no place to alight. It is only really fun toward the last when the children play. Should we go and have breakfast at the Gritti?”
“Do you want to?”
“Yes.”
“Good. We’ll have breakfast there. I’ve had mine already.”
“Really?”
“I’ll have some coffee and hot rolls, and only feel them with my fingers. Are you awfully hungry?”
“Awfully,” she said, truly.
“We’ll give breakfast the full treatment,” the Colonel said. “You’ll wish you had never heard of breakfast.”
As they walked, with the wind at their back, and her hair blowing better than any banner, she asked him, holding close, “Do you still love me in the cold, hard Venice light of morning? It is really cold and hard isn’t it?”
“I love you and it is cold and hard.”
“I loved you all night when I was skiing in the dark.”
“How do you do that?”
“It is the same runs except that it is dark and the snow is dark instead of light. You ski the same; controlled and good.”
“Did you ski all night? That would be many runs.”
“No. Afterwards I slept soundly and well and I woke happy. You were with me and you were asleep like a baby.”
“I wasn’t with you and I was not asleep.”
