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nature. Learn to expect them.”
    Jack smiled, remembering, and felt better. The taste of blood, linking him now with his childhood, made him feel younger. He put the whisky down half-finished and got a piece of ice out of the bucket and lay down on the bed, holding the ice behind his head, at the base of his skull. He was glad he had thought of his father, on a spring evening, when his father had been a young man.
    He drowsed a little, not minding the thin cold trickle going down into his collar. “Sangue, sangue,” he said sleepily to himself. “Why couldn’t I remember a simple word like that?”

3
    D ELANEY WAS NOT IN the bar when Jack arrived there. He had showered and his hair was wet and neatly brushed, and he was wearing the newly pressed suit. His nose was still puffy, but the bleeding had stopped and the shower had made him feel fresh and wide-awake and ready to enjoy the night in the city. The bar was crowded, with many Americans, solid and middle-aged, who had earned their cocktails with long hours in front of statues and altarpieces, visiting ruins and triumphal arches and arranging for audiences with the Pope. All the bar stools were taken and Jack had to stand and reach between a man and woman who were sitting there to get his martini.
    “He said he didn’t understand German,” the woman was saying, in a thick German accent, “but I knew he was lying. All Jews understand German.”
    “Where’re you from?” the man asked.
    “Hamburg,” the woman said. She was red-headed and dressed in a tight black dress, cut low between her breasts. She was a plump, curved woman with a shrewd, perverse face and reddish, big, farm-girl hands. Jack had been in the bar at the cocktail hour three or four times during the past few years and each time he had seen her there, and her profession was plain. It was a polite bar and she waited to be asked, but it was obvious that she had an arrangement with the chief bartender.
    The Germans, Jack thought, looking at her with distaste, ready to supply all the needs of post-war Europe. At least the whores in Paris don’t look so satisfied with themselves.
    He turned his back on the couple at the bar, holding his glass in his hand, looking around the room, his view of the near corner obscured by a group of young Italians, marvelously barbered, with spreading, immaculate collars and pale neckties and narrow-waisted short jackets, who were standing close to him, talking desultorily, handsome, predatory, their eyes candidly appraising each new woman who entered the room, ready for money or vice or love or travel. Looking at them, Jack had a momentary sharp pang of envy, for their good looks, for their assurance, for their youth, but most of all for their openness. Like most Americans, Jack had the feeling that he had spent most of his life submerging almost everything that he felt, and this unattainable Italian overtness, this advertised zest and shameless availability made him feel unpracticed and foolishly innocent.
    Jack moved a little, so as to be able to see beyond the group of young men. Carefully, he looked at the faces of the other drinkers. After a moment, he realized he was looking for the man who had hit him and the two women with him. They were not in the bar. Annoyed with himself, Jack shrugged. What would I do with him if I found him? he thought.
    He finished his drink and was about to order another when he saw Delaney come striding into the bar, still in the same coat, but with his cap jammed in his pocket, his pale, childish hair rumpled over the red face, marked by the lines of power and temper.
    “We’re late,” Delaney said, without a greeting. “Let’s get out of here. I hate this joint anyway. It’s full of bloodsuckers.” He stared angrily at the group of Italians, at the German whore, at the monument-worn Americans.
    Jack paid for his drink and started out with Delaney.
    “What’re we late for?” he asked.
    “You’ll see, you’ll see,” Delaney