"Hemingway, Ernest - Across the River and Into the Trees" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hemingway Ernest)

CHAPTER III
THAT was day before yesterday. Yesterday he had driven down from Trieste to Venice along the old road that ran from Monfalcone to Latisana and across the flat country. He had a good driver and he relaxed completely in the front seat of the car and looked out at all this country he had known when he was a boy.
It looks quite differently now, he thought. I suppose it is because the distances are all changed. Everything is much smaller when you are older. Then, too, the roads are better now and there is no dust. The only times I used to ride through it was in a camion. The rest of the times we walked. I suppose what I looked for then, was patches of shade when we fell out, and wells in farm yards. And ditches, too, he thought. I certainly looked for plenty of ditches.
They made a curve and crossed the Tagliamento on a temporary bridge. It was green along the banks and men were fishing along the far shore where it ran deep. The blown bridge was being repaired with a snarl of riveting hammers, and eight hundred yards away the smashed buildings and outbuildings of what was now a ruined country house once built by Longhena showed where the mediums had dropped their loads.
УLook at it,Ф the driver said. УIn this country you find a bridge or a railway station. Then go half a mile from it in any direction and you find it like that.Ф
УI guess the lesson is,Ф the Colonel said, УdonТt ever build yourself a country house, or a church, or hire Giotto to paint you any frescoes, if youТve got a church, eight hundred yards away from any bridge.Ф
УI knew there must be a lesson in it, sir,Ф the driver said.
They were past the ruined villa now and onto the straight road with the willows growing by the ditches still dark with winter, and the fields full of mulberry trees. Ahead a man was pedalling a bicycle and using both his hands to read a paper.
УIf there are heavies the lesson ought to say a mile,Ф the driver said. УWould that be about right, sir?Ф
УIf itТs guided missiles,Ф the Colonel said. УBetter make it two hundred and fifty miles. Better give that cyclist some horn.Ф
The driver did, and the man moved over to the side of the road without either looking up or touching his handlebars. As they passed him, the Colonel tried to see what paper he was reading, but it was folded over.
УI guess a man would do better now not to build himself a fine house or a church, or to get who did you say it was to paint frescoes?Ф
УGiotto, I said. But it could be Piero della Francesca or Mantegna. Could be Michelangelo.Ф
УDo you know a lot about painters, sir?Ф the driver asked.
They were on a straight stretch of road now and were making time so that one farm blended, almost blurred, into another farm and you could only see what was far ahead and moving toward you. Lateral vision was just a condensation of flat, low country in the winter. IТm not sure I like speed, the Colonel thought. Brueghel would have been in a hell of a shape if he had to look at the country like this.
УPainters?Ф he answered the driver. УI know quite a little about them, Burnham.Ф
УIТm Jackson, sir. BurnhamТs up at the rest center at Cortina. ThatТs a fine place, sir.Ф
УIТm getting stupid,Ф the Colonel said. УExcuse me, Jackson. It is a fine place. Good chow. Well run. Nobody bothers you.Ф
УYes, sir,Ф Jackson agreed. УNow the reason I asked you about painters, is these madonnas. I thought I ought to see some painting so I went to that big place in Florence.Ф
УThe Uffizi? The Pitti?Ф
УWhatever they call it. The biggest one. And I kept looking at those paintings until madonnas started to run out of my ears. I tell you, Colonel, sir, a man who hasnТt been checked out on this painting can only see just about so many madonnas and it gets him. You know my theory? You know how crazy they are about bambinis and the less they got to eat the more bambinis they got and that they have coming? Well, I think these painters were probably big bambini lovers like all Italians. I donТt know these ones you mentioned just now, so I donТt include them in my theory and youТll put me straight anyway. But it looks to me like these madonnas, that I really saw plenty of, sir, it looks to me like these just straight ordinary madonna painters were sort of a manifest, say, of this whole bambini business, if you understand what I mean.Ф
УPlus the fact that they were restricted to religious subjects.Ф
УYes, sir. Then you think there is something to my theory?Ф
УSure. I think it is a little more complicated, though.Ф
УNaturally, sir. ItТs just my preliminary theory.Ф
УDo you have any other theories on art, Jackson?Ф
УNo, sir. That bambini theory is as far as IТve thought it through. What I wish is, though, they would paint some good pictures of that high country up around the rest center at Cortina.Ф
УTitian came from up there,Ф the Colonel said. УAt least they say he did. I went down the valley and saw the house where he was supposed to be born.Ф
УWas it much of a place, sir?Ф
УNot so much.Ф
УWell, if he painted any pictures of that country up around there, with those sunset color rocks and the pines and the snow and all the pointed steeplesЧФ
УCampaniles,Ф the Colonel said. УLike that one ahead at Ceggia. It means bell tower.Ф
УWell, if he painted any really good pictures of that country IТd sure as hell like to trade him out of some of them.Ф
УHe painted some wonderful women,Ф the Colonel said.
УIf I had a joint or a roadhouse or some sort of an inn, say, I could use one of those,Ф the driver said. УBut if I brought home a picture of some woman, my old woman would run me from Rawlins to Buffalo. IТd be lucky if I got to Buffalo.Ф
УYou could give it to the local museum.Ф
УAll they got in the local museum is arrow heads, war bonnets, scalping knives, different scalps, petrified fish, pipes of peace, photographs of Liver Eating Johnston, and the skin of some bad man that they hanged him and some doctor skinned him out. One of those women pictures would be out of place there.Ф
УSee that next campanile down there across the plain?Ф the Colonel said. УIТll show you a place down there where we used to fight when I was a kid.Ф
УDid you fight here, too, sir?Ф
УYeah,Ф the Colonel said.
УWho had Trieste in that war?Ф
УThe Krauts. The Austrians, I mean.Ф
УDid we ever get it?Ф
УNot till the end when it was over.Ф
УWho had Florence and Rome?Ф
УWe did.Ф
УWell, I guess you werenТt so damned bad off then.Ф
УSir,Ф the Colonel said gently.
УIТm sorry, sir,Ф the driver said quickly. УI was in the Thirty-Sixth Division, sir.Ф
УIТve seen the patch.Ф