Complete Short Stories Of Ernest Hemingway, The

“Shit,” he said. “The dark is just the dark. This isn’t like the real dark. I can see very well inside and now my head is better all the time and I can remember and I can make up well. You wait and see. Didn’t I remember better today?”

“You remember better all the time. And you’re getting strong.”

“I am strong,” he said. “Now if you—”

“If me what?”

“If you’d go away for a while and get a rest and a change from this.”

“Don’t you want me?”

“Of course I want you, darling.”

“Then why do we have to talk about me going away? I know I’m not good at looking after you but I can do things other people can’t do and we do love each other. You love me and you know it and we know things nobody else knows.”

“We do wonderful things in the dark,” he said.

“And we did wonderful things in the daytime too.”

“You know I rather like the dark. In some ways it is an improvement.”

“Don’t lie too much,” she said. “You don’t have to be so bloody noble.”

“Listen to it rain,” he said. “How is the tide now?”

“It’s way out and the wind has driven the water even further out. You could almost walk to Burano.”

“All except one place,” he said. “Are there many birds?”

“Mostly gulls and terns. They are down on the flats and when they get up the wind catches them.”

“Aren’t there any shore birds?”

“There are a few working on the part of the flats that only comes out when we have this wind and this tide.”

“Do you think it will ever be spring?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “It certainly doesn’t act like it.”

“Have you drunk all your drink?”

“Just about. Why don’t you drink yours?”

“I was saving it.”

“Drink it up,” she said. “Wasn’t it awful when you couldn’t drink at all?”

“No, you see,” he said. “What I was thinking about when you went downstairs was that you could go to Paris and then to London and you’d see people and could have some fun and then you’d come back and it would have to be spring by then and you could tell me all about everything.”

“No,” she said.

“I think it would be intelligent to do,” he said. “You know this is a long sort of stupid business and we have to learn to pace ourselves. And I don’t want to wear you out. You know—”

“I wish you wouldn’t say ‘you know’ so much.”

“You see? That’s one of the things. I could learn to talk in a non-irritating way. You might be mad about me when you came back.”

“What would you do nights?”

“Nights are easy.”

“I’ll bet they are. I suppose you’ve learned how to sleep too.”

“I’m going to,” he told her and drank half the drink. “That’s part of The Plan. You know this is how it works. If you go away and have some fun then I have a good conscience. Then for the first time in my life with a good conscience I sleep automatically. I take a pillow which represents my good conscience and I put my arms around it and off I go to sleep. If I wake up by any odd chance I just think beautiful happy dirty thoughts. Or I make wonderful fine good resolutions. Or I remember things. You know I want you to have fun—”

“Please don’t say ‘you know’”

“I’ll concentrate on not saying it. It’s barred but I forget and let the bars down. Anyway I don’t want you just to be a seeing-eyed dog.”

“I’m not and you know it. Anyway it’s seeing-eye not seeing-eyed.”

“I knew that,” he told her. “Come and sit here, would you mind very much?”

She came and sat by him on the bed and they both heard the rain hard against the pane of the window and he tried not to feel her head and her lovely face the way a blind man feels and there was no other way that he could touch her face except that way. He held her close and kissed the top of her head. I will have to try it another day, he thought. I must not be so stupid about it. She feels so lovely and I love her so much and have done her so much damage and I must learn to take good care of her in every way I can. If I think of her and of her only, everything will be all right.

“I won’t say ‘you know’ all the time any more,” he told her. “We can start with that.”

She shook her head and he could feel her tremble.

“You say it all you want,” she said and kissed him.

“Please don’t cry, my blessed,” he said.

“I don’t want you to sleep with any lousy pillow,” she said.

“I won’t. Not any lousy pillow.”

Stop it, he said to himself. Stop it right now.

“Look, tu,” he said. “We’ll go down now and have lunch in our old fine place by the fire and I’ll tell you what a wonderful kitten you are and what lucky kittens we are.”

“We really are.”

“We’ll work everything out fine.”

“I just don’t want to be sent away.”

“Nobody is ever going to send you away.”

But walking down the stairs feeling each stair carefully and holding to the banister he thought, I must get her away and get her away as soon as I can without hurting her. Because I am not doing too well at this. That I can promise you. But what else can you do? Nothing, he thought. There’s nothing you can do. But maybe, as you go along, you will get good at it.

A Man of the World