closed villas. I rowed across to Isola Bella and went close to the walls, where the water deepened sharply, and you saw the rock wall slanting down in the clear water, and then up and along to the fisherman’s island. The sun was under a cloud and the water was dark and smooth and very cold. We did not have a strike though we Saw some circles on the water from rising fish.
I rowed up opposite the fisherman’s island where there were boats drawn up and men were mending nets.
“Should we get a drink?”
“All right.”
I brought the boat up to the stone pier and the barman pulled in the line, coiling it on the bottom of the boat and hooking the spinner on the edge of the gun-wale. I stepped out and tied the boat. We went into a little café, sat at a bare wooden table and ordered vermouth.
“Are you tired from rowing?”
“No.”
“I’ll row back,” he said.
“I like to row.”
“Maybe if you hold the line it will change the luck.”
“All right.”
“Tell me how goes the war.”
“Rotten.”
“I don’t have to go. I’m too old, like Count Greffi.”’
“Maybe you’ll have to go yet.”
“Next year they’ll call my class. But I won’t go.”
“What will you do?”
“Get out of the country. I wouldn’t go to war. I was at the war once in Abyssinia. Nix. Why do you go?”
“I don’t know. I was a fool.”
“Have another vermouth?”
