I went to the door and looked out. It had stopped raining but there was a mist.
“Should we go upstairs?” I asked the priest.
“I can only stay a little while.”
“Come on up.”
We climbed the stairs and went into my room. I lay down on Rinaldi’s bed. The priest sat on my cot that the orderly had set up. It was dark in the room.
“Well,” he said, “how are you really?”
“I’m all right. I’m tired tonight.”
“I’m tired too, but from no cause.”
“What about the war?”
“I think it will be over soon. I don’t know why, but I feel it.”
“How do you feel it?”
“You know how your major is? Gentle? Many people are like that now.”
“I feel that way myself,” I said.
“It has been a terrible summer,” said the priest. He was surer of himself now than when I had gone away. “You cannot believe how it has been. Except that you have been there and you know how it can be.