“You know many, many things. Don’t say such a thing.”
“Sure,” the Colonel said. “I know how to fight forwards and how to fight backwards and what else?”
“About pictures and about books and about life.”
“That’s easy. You just look at the pictures without prejudice, and you read the books with as open a mind as you have, and you live life.”
“Don’t take off your tunic, please.”
“All right.”
“You do anything when I say please.”
“I have done things without.”
“Not very often.”
“No,” the Colonel agreed. “Please is a pretty word.”
“Please, please, please.”
“Per piacere. It means for pleasure. I wish we always talked Italian.”
“We could in the dark. Although there are things that say better in English.
“I love you my last true and only love,” she quoted. “When lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed. And out of the cradle endlessly rocking. And come and get it, you sons of bitches, or I’ll throw it away. You don’t want those in other languages do you, Richard?”
“No.”
“Kiss me again, please.”
“Unnecessary please.”
“I would probably end up as an unnecessary please myself. That is the good thing about you going to die that you can’t leave me.”
