were poorer than that. We were poorer than you can know, my Colonel.”
“I think I can know.”
“Perhaps,” the waiter said. “My wife also saved all the feathers and she asked me to thank you.”
“If we have any luck day after tomorrow, we’ll get plenty. The big ducks with the green heads. Tell your wife, with luck, there will be good eating ducks, fat as pigs with what they have eaten from the Russians, and with beautiful feathers.”
“How do you feel about the Russians, if it is not indiscreet to ask, my Colonel?”
“They are our potential enemy. So, as a soldier, I am prepared to fight them. But I like them very much and I have never known finer people nor people more as we are.”
“I have never had the good fortune to know them.”
“You will, boy. You will. Unless the Honorable Pacciardi stops them on the line of the Piave, which is a river which no longer contains water. It has been syphoned off for hydro-electric projects. Perhaps the Honorable Pacciardi will fight there. But I do not think he will fight for long.”
“I do not know the Honorable Pacciardi.”
“I know him,” said the Colonel.
“Now ask them to ring Harry’s and see if the Contessa is there. If not, have them ring the house again.”
The Colonel took the drink Arnaldo, the glass-eyed waiter, made him. He did not want it, and he knew that it was bad for him.
