Ernest Hemingway

ACROSS THE RIVER AND INTO THE TREES
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CHAPTER VII

THE bar was just across from the lobby of the Gritti, although lobby, the Colonel thought, was not the ac­curate term to describe that gracious entrance. Didn’t Giotto describe a circle, he thought? No, that was in math. What he remembered and loved best as an anec­dote about that painter was: “It was easy,” said Giotto as he drew the perfect circle. Who the hell had said that and where?

“Good evening, Privy Counsellor,” he said to the bar­man, who was not a full paid-up member of the order but whom he did not wish to offend. “What can I do for you?”

“Drink, my Colonel.”

The Colonel looked out of the windows and the door of the bar onto the waters of the Grand Canal. He could see the big black hitching post for the gondolas and the late afternoon winter light on the wind-swept water. Across the Canal was the old Palace and a wood barge, black and broad, was coming up the Canal, her bluff bows pushing up a wave even though she had the wind behind her.

“Make it a very dry Martini,” the Colonel said. “A double.”

Just then the Grand Master came into the room. He was wearing his formal attire as a head waiter. He was truly handsome as a man should be, from the inside out, so that his smile starts from his heart, or whatever is the center of the body, and comes frankly and beautifully to the surface, which is the face.

He had a fine face with the long, straight nose of his part of the Veneto; the kind, gay, truthful eyes and the honorable white hair of his age, which was two years older than that of the Colonel.

He advanced smiling, lovingly, and yet conspiratorially, since they both shared many secrets, and he extended his hand, which was a big, long, strong, spatular fingered hand; well kept as was becoming, as well as necessary, to his position, and the Colonel extended his own hand, which had been shot through twice, and was slightly misshapen. Thus contact was made between two old inhabitants of the Veneto, both men, and brothers in their membership in the human race, the only club that either one paid dues to, and brothers, too, in their love of an old country, much fought over, and always trium­phant in defeat, which they had both defended in their youth.

Their handshake was only long enough to feel, firmly, the contact and the pleasure of meeting and then the Maitre d’Hotel said, “My Colonel.”

The Colonel said, “Gran Maestro.”

Then the Colonel asked the Gran Maestro to accom­pany him in a drink, but the Maitre d’Hotel said that he was working. It was impossible as well as forbidden.

“Fornicate forbidden,” said the Colonel.

“Of course,” the Gran Maestro said. “But everyone must comply with his duty, and here the rules are reason­able, and we all should comply with them; me especially, as a matter of precept.”

“Not for nothing are you the Gran Maestro,” the Colo­nel said.

“Give me a small Carpano punto e mezzo,” the Gran Maestro said to the bar-tender, who was still outside of the Order for some small, (...)

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