"Your father was a griffon," the wicked lioness said, licking her whiskers.
"You are a liar," one of the wicked lions said. "There is no such city."
"Pass me a piece of Hindu trader," another very wicked lion said. "This Masai cattle is too newly killed."
"You are a worthless liar and the son of a griffon," the wickedest of all the lionesses said. "And now I think I shall kill you and eat you, wings and all."
This frightened the good lion very much because he could see her yellow eyes and her tail going up and down and the blood caked on her whiskers and he smelled her breath which was very bad because she never brushed her teeth ever. Also she had old pieces of Hindu trader under her claws.
"Don't kill me," the good lion said. "My father is a noble lion and always has been respected and everything is true as I said."
Just then the wicked lioness sprang at him. But he rose into the air on his wings and circled the group of wicked lions once, with them all roaring and looking at him. He looked down and thought, "What savages these lions are."
He circled them once more to make them roar more loudly. Then he swooped low so he could look at the eyes of the wicked lioness who rose on her hind legs to try and catch him. But she missed him with her claws. "Adios," he said, for he spoke beautiful Spanish, being a lion of culture. "Au revoir," he called to them in his exemplary French.
They all roared and growled in African lion dialect.
Then the good lion circled higher and higher and set his course for Venice. He alighted in the Piazza and everyone was delighted to see him. He flew up for a moment and kissed his father on both cheeks and saw the horses still had their feeet up and the Basilica looked more beautiful than a soap bubble. The Campanile was in place and the pigeons were going to their nests for the evening.
"How was Africa?" his father said.
"Very savage, father," the good lion replied.
"We have night lighting here now," his father said.
"So I see," the good lion answered like a dutiful son.
"It bothers my eyes a little," his father confided to him. "Where are you going now, my son?"
"To Harry's Bar," the good lion said.
"Remember me to Cipriani and tell him I will be in some day soon to see about my bill," said his father.
"Yes, father," said the good lion and he flew down lightly and walked to Harry's Bar on his own four paws.
In Cipriani's nothing was changed. All of his friends were there. But he was a little changed himself from being in Africa.
"A Negroni, Signor Barone?" asked Mr. Cipriani.
But the good lion had flown all the way from Africa and Africa had changed him.
"Do you have any Hindu trader sandwiches?" he asked Cipriani.
"No, but I can get some."
"While you are sending for them, make me a very dry martini." He added, "With Gordon's gin."
"Very good," said Cipriani. "Very good indeed."
Now the lion looked about him at the faces of all the nice people and he knew that he was at home but that he had also traveled. He was very happy.
The Faithful Bull.
ONE TIME THERE WAS A BULL AND HIS name was not Ferdinand and he cared nothing for flowers. He loved to fight and he fought with all the other bulls of his own age, or any age, and he was a champion.
His horns were as solid as wood and they were as sharply pointed as the quill of a porcupine. They hurt him, at the base, when he fought and he did not care at all. His neck muscles lifted in a great lump that is called in Spanish the morillo and this morillo lifted like a hill when he was ready to fight. He was always ready to fight and his coat was black and shining and his eyes were clear.
Anything made him want to fight and he would fight with deadly seriousness exactly as some people eat or read or go to church. Each time he fought he fought to kill and the other bulls were not afraid of him because they came of good blood and were not afraid. But they had no wish to provoke him. Nor did they wish to fight him.
He was not a bully nor was he wicked, but he liked to fight as men might like to sing or to be the King or the President. He never thought at all. Fighting was his obligation and his duty and his joy.
He fought on the stony, high ground. He fought under the cork-oak trees and he fought in the good pasture by the river. He walked fifteen miles each day from the river to the high, stony ground and he would fight any bull that looked at him. Still he was never angry.
That is not really true, for he was angry inside himself. But he did not know why, because he could not think. He was very noble and he loved to fight.
So what happened to him? The man who owned him, if anyone can own such an animal, knew what a great bull he was and still he was worried because this bull cost him so much money by fighting with other bulls. Each bull was worth over one thousand dollars and after they had fought the great bull they were worth less than two hundred dollars and sometimes less than that.
So the man, who was a good man, decided that he would keep the blood of this bull in all of his stock rather than send him to the ring to be killed. So he selected him for breeding.
But this bull was a strange bull. When they first turned him into the pasture with the breeding cows, he saw one who was young and beautiful and slimmer and better muscled and shinier and more lovely than all the others. So, since he could not fight, he fell in love with her and he paid no attention to any of the others. He only wanted to be with her, and the others meant nothing to him at all.
The man who owned the bull ranch hoped that the bull would change, or learn, or be different than he was. But the bull was the same and he loved whom he loved and no one else. He only wanted to be with her, and the others meant nothing to him at all.
So the man sent him away with five other bulls to be killed in the ring, and at least the bull could fight, even though he was faithful. He fought wonderfully and everyone admired him and the man who killed him admired him the most. But the fighting jacket of the man who killed him and who is called the matador was wet through by the end, and his mouth was very dry.
"Que toro mas bravo," the matador said as he handed his sword to his sword handler. He handed it with the hilt up and the blade dripping with the blood from the heart of the brave bull who no longer had any problems of any kind and was being dragged out of the ring by four horses.
"Yes. He was the one the Marques of Villamayor had to get rid of because he was faithful," the sword handler, who knew everything, said.
"Perhaps we should all be faithful," the matador said.
Get a Seeing-Eyed Dog.
"AND WHAT DID WE DO THEN?" HE asked her. She told him.
"That part is very strange. I can't remember that at all."
"Can you remember the safari leaving?"
"I should. But I don't. I remember the women going down the trail to the beach for the water with the pots on their heads and I remember the flock of geese the toto drove back and forth to the water. I remember how slowly they all went and they were always going down or coming up. There was a very big tide too and the flats were yellow and the channel ran by the far island. The wind blew all the time and there were no flies and no mosquitoes. There was a roof and a cement floor and the poles that held the roof up, and the wind blew through them all the time. It was cool all day and lovely and cool at night."
"Do you remember when the big dhow came in and careened on the low tide?"
"Yes, I remember her and the crew coming ashore in her boats and coming up the path from the beach, and the geese were afraid of them and so were the women."
"That was the day we caught so many fish but had to come in because it was rough."
"I remember that."
"You're remembering well today," she said. "Don't do it too much."
"I'm sorry you didn't get to fly to Zanzibar," he said. "That upper beach from where we were was a fine place to land. You could have landed and taken off from there quite easily."
"We can always go to Zanzibar. Don't try to remember too much today. Would you like me to read to you? There's always something in the old New Yorkers that we missed."
"No, please don't read," he said. "Just talk. Talk about the good days."
"Do you want to hear about what it's like outside?"
"It's raining," he said. "I know that."
"It's raining a big rain," she told him. "There won't be any tourists out with this weather. The wind is very wild and we can go down and sit by the fire."
"We could anyway. I don't care about them any more. I like to hear them talk."
"Some of them are awful," she said. "But some of them are quite nice. I think it's really the nicest ones that go out to Torcello."
"That's quite true," he said. "I hadn't thought of that. There's really nothing for them to see unless they are a bit too nice."
"Can I make you a drink?" she asked. "You know how worthless a nurse I am. I wasn't trained for it and I haven't any talent. But I can make drinks."
"Let's have a drink."
"What do you want?"
"Anything," he said.
"I'll make a surprise. I'll make it downstairs."
He heard the door open and close and her feet on the stairs and he thought, I must get her to go on a trip. I must figure out some way to do it. I have to think up something practical. I've got this now for the rest of my life and I must figure out ways not to destroy her life and ruin her with it. She has been so good and she was not built to be good. I mean this sort of good. I mean good every day and dull good.
He heard her coming up the stairs and noticed the difference in her tread when she was carrying two glasses and when she had walked down barehanded. He heard the rain on the windowpane and he smelled the beech logs burning in the fireplace. As she came into the room he put his hand out for the drink and closed his hand on it and felt her touch the glass with her own.
"It's our old drink for out here," she said. "Campari and Gordon's with ice."
"I'm certainly glad you're not a girl who would say 'on the rocks'"
"No," she said. "I wouldn't ever say that. We've been on the rocks."
"On our own two feet when the chips were down and for keeps," he remembered. "Do you remember when we barred those phrases?"
"That was in the time of my lion. Wasn't he a wonderful lion? I can't wait till we see him."
"I can't either," he said.
"I'm sorry."
"Do you remember when we barred that phrase?"
"I nearly said it again."
"You know," he told her, "we're awfully lucky to have come here. I remember it so well that it is palpable. That's a new word and we'll bar it soon. But it really is wonderful. When I hear the rain I can see it on the stones and on the canal and on the lagoon, and I know the way the trees bend in every wind and how the church and the tower are in every sort of light. We couldn't have come to a better place for me. It's really perfect. We've got the good radio and a fine tape recorder and I'm going to write better than I ever could. If you take your time with the tape recorder you can get the words right. I can work slow and I can see the words when I say them. If they're wrong I hear them wrong and I can do them over and work on them until I get them right. Honey, in lots of ways we couldn't have it better."
"Oh, Philip-"
"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."