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The best ammunition against falsehood and truth. There is no ammunition to control gossip: and like the fog and the clear wind it sweeps it and the sun burns it."

He takes a few steps into the room, stops, turns back to me. "People should be more mature in gossip and lie more intelligently, if they really have to lie. I have already told you and written all this and I will write to you again and again, to give you more ammunition. You are not the girl in the book and I'm not the colonel who died in the car on the road from Codroipo to Latisana."

"Thank Heaven you are Papa and you are not dead, even if you pretended to be for a few days." I smiled at him.

He smiled too. "I didn't want to die because I wanted to see you again, Daughter. My last and true love: because you are that, I've always tried to love you in the best way." 

"I love you too, Papa."

He squinted his eyes for a moment. "Even if I hadn't written a book about Veneto, people would have noticed that we were fine together, that we worked well together, that we were always happy..." His voice was sad. "People are always jealous of those who are happy." He turned to the window.

We are far away again. Beyond the window, the light that is about to set has tinged the canal pink. His figure looks darker and more massive against the pink. "Maybe it would have been better if I hadn't met you, that day in the rain..."

Then he turned to me. Two tears shone suspended in his eyes. They rolled off, more big tears rolled down his cheeks. 

"Look, Daughter. Look. Now you can tell everyone that you saw Ernest Hemingway cry."

Behind him the Canal was no longer pink.