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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75201 ***
+
+
+                          [Cover Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                       BOOKS BY ERNEST HEMINGWAY
+
+
+                         A FAREWELL TO ARMS
+                         MEN WITHOUT WOMEN
+                         THE SUN ALSO RISES
+                         THE TORRENTS OF SPRING
+                         IN OUR TIME
+
+
+
+
+                           A FAREWELL TO ARMS
+
+
+
+
+                           A FAREWELL TO ARMS
+
+                                   By
+                            ERNEST HEMINGWAY
+
+                                NEW YORK
+                        CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
+                                  1929
+
+
+
+
+                          COPYRIGHT, 1929, BY
+                        CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
+
+                Printed in the United States of America
+
+                             [Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                                   TO
+                             G. A. PFEIFFER
+
+
+
+
+                                 BOOK 1
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that
+looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of
+the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and
+the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops
+went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered
+the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the
+leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the
+road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and
+the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and white except for
+the leaves.
+
+The plain was rich with crops; there were many orchards of fruit trees
+and beyond the plain the mountains were brown and bare. There was
+fighting in the mountains and at night we could see the flashes from the
+artillery. In the dark it was like summer lightning, but the nights were
+cool and there was not the feeling of a storm coming.
+
+Sometimes in the dark we heard the troops marching under the window and
+guns going past pulled by motor-tractors. There was much traffic at
+night and many mules on the roads with boxes of ammunition on each side
+of their pack-saddles and gray motor-trucks that carried men, and other
+trucks with loads covered with canvas that moved slower in the traffic.
+There were big guns too that passed in the day drawn by tractors, the
+long barrels of the guns covered with green branches and green leafy
+branches and vines laid over the tractors. To the north we could look
+across a valley and see a forest of chestnut trees and behind it another
+mountain on this side of the river. There was fighting for that mountain
+too, but it was not successful, and in the fall when the rains came the
+leaves all fell from the chestnut trees and the branches were bare and
+the trunks black with rain. The vineyards were thin and bare-branched
+too and all the country wet and brown and dead with the autumn. There
+were mists over the river and clouds on the mountain and the trucks
+splashed mud on the road and the troops were muddy and wet in their
+capes; their rifles were wet and under their capes the two leather
+cartridge-boxes on the front of the belts, gray leather boxes heavy with
+the packs of clips of thin, long 6.5 mm. cartridges, bulged forward
+under the capes so that the men, passing on the road, marched as though
+they were six months gone with child.
+
+There were small gray motor-cars that passed going very fast; usually
+there was an officer on the seat with the driver and more officers in
+the back seat. They splashed more mud than the camions even and if one
+of the officers in the back was very small and sitting between two
+generals, he himself so small that you could not see his face but only
+the top of his cap and his narrow back, and if the car went especially
+fast it was probably the King. He lived in Udine and came out in this
+way nearly every day to see how things were going, and things went very
+badly.
+
+At the start of the winter came the permanent rain and with the rain
+came the cholera. But it was checked and in the end only seven thousand
+died of it in the army.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+The next year there were many victories. The mountain that was beyond
+the valley and the hillside where the chestnut forest grew was captured
+and there were victories beyond the plain on the plateau to the south
+and we crossed the river in August and lived in a house in Gorizia that
+had a fountain and many thick shady trees in a walled garden and a
+wistaria vine purple on the side of the house. Now the fighting was in
+the next mountains beyond and was not a mile away. The town was very
+nice and our house was very fine. The river ran behind us and the town
+had been captured very handsomely but the mountains beyond it could not
+be taken and I was very glad the Austrians seemed to want to come back
+to the town some time, if the war should end, because they did not
+bombard it to destroy it but only a little in a military way. People
+lived on in it and there were hospitals and cafés and artillery up side
+streets and two bawdy houses, one for troops and one for officers, and
+with the end of the summer, the cool nights, the fighting in the
+mountains beyond the town, the shell-marked iron of the railway bridge,
+the smashed tunnel by the river where the fighting had been, the trees
+around the square and the long avenue of trees that led to the square;
+these with there being girls in the town, the King passing in his motor
+car, sometimes now seeing his face and little long necked body and gray
+beard like a goat’s chin tuft; all these with the sudden interiors of
+houses that had lost a wall through shelling, with plaster and rubble in
+their gardens and sometimes in the street, and the whole thing going
+well on the Carso made the fall very different from the last fall when
+we had been in the country. The war was changed too.
+
+The forest of oak trees on the mountain beyond the town was gone. The
+forest had been green in the summer when we had come into the town but
+now there were the stumps and the broken trunks and the ground torn up,
+and one day at the end of the fall when I was out where the oak forest
+had been I saw a cloud coming over the mountain. It came very fast and
+the sun went a dull yellow and then everything was gray and the sky was
+covered and the cloud came on down the mountain and suddenly we were in
+it and it was snow. The snow slanted across the wind, the bare ground
+was covered, the stumps of trees projected, there was snow on the guns
+and there were paths in the snow going back to the latrines behind
+trenches.
+
+Later, below in the town, I watched the snow falling, looking out of the
+window of the bawdy house, the house for officers, where I sat with a
+friend and two glasses drinking a bottle of Asti, and, looking out at
+the snow falling slowly and heavily, we knew it was all over for that
+year. Up the river the mountains had not been taken; none of the
+mountains beyond the river had been taken. That was all left for next
+year. My friend saw the priest from our mess going by in the street,
+walking carefully in the slush, and pounded on the window to attract his
+attention. The priest looked up. He saw us and smiled. My friend
+motioned for him to come in. The priest shook his head and went on. That
+night in the mess after the spaghetti course, which every one ate very
+quickly and seriously, lifting the spaghetti on the fork until the loose
+strands hung clear then lowering it into the mouth, or else using a
+continuous lift and sucking into the mouth, helping ourselves to wine
+from the grass-covered gallon flask; it swung in a metal cradle and you
+pulled the neck of the flask down with the forefinger and the wine,
+clear red, tannic and lovely, poured out into the glass held with the
+same hand; after this course, the captain commenced picking on the
+priest.
+
+The priest was young and blushed easily and wore a uniform like the rest
+of us but with a cross in dark red velvet above the left breast pocket
+of his gray tunic. The captain spoke pidgin Italian for my doubtful
+benefit, in order that I might understand perfectly, that nothing should
+be lost.
+
+“Priest to-day with girls,” the captain said looking at the priest and
+at me. The priest smiled and blushed and shook his head. This captain
+baited him often.
+
+“Not true?” asked the captain. “To-day I see priest with girls.”
+
+“No,” said the priest. The other officers were amused at the baiting.
+
+“Priest not with girls,” went on the captain. “Priest never with girls,”
+he explained to me. He took my glass and filled it, looking at my eyes
+all the time, but not losing sight of the priest.
+
+“Priest every night five against one.” Every one at the table laughed.
+“You understand? Priest every night five against one.” He made a gesture
+and laughed loudly. The priest accepted it as a joke.
+
+“The Pope wants the Austrians to win the war,” the major said. “He loves
+Franz Joseph. That’s where the money comes from. I am an atheist.”
+
+“Did you ever read the ‘Black Pig’?” asked the lieutenant. “I will get
+you a copy. It was that which shook my faith.”
+
+“It is a filthy and vile book,” said the priest. “You do not really like
+it.”
+
+“It is very valuable,” said the lieutenant. “It tells you about those
+priests. You will like it,” he said to me. I smiled at the priest and he
+smiled back across the candle-light. “Don’t you read it,” he said.
+
+“I will get it for you,” said the lieutenant.
+
+“All thinking men are atheists,” the major said. “I do not believe in
+the Free Masons however.”
+
+“I believe in the Free Masons,” the lieutenant said. “It is a noble
+organization.” Some one came in and as the door opened I could see the
+snow falling.
+
+“There will be no more offensive now that the snow has come,” I said.
+
+“Certainly not,” said the major. “You should go on leave. You should go
+to Rome, Naples, Sicily——”
+
+“He should visit Amalfi,” said the lieutenant “I will write you cards to
+my family in Amalfi. They will love you like a son.”
+
+“He should go to Palermo.”
+
+“He ought to go to Capri.”
+
+“I would like you to see Abruzzi and visit my family at Capracotta,”
+said the priest.
+
+“Listen to him talk about the Abruzzi. There’s more snow there than
+here. He doesn’t want to see peasants. Let him go to centres of culture
+and civilization.”
+
+“He should have fine girls. I will give you the addresses of places in
+Naples. Beautiful young girls—accompanied by their mothers. Ha! Ha!
+Ha!” The captain spread his hand open, the thumb up and fingers
+outspread as when you make shadow pictures. There was a shadow from his
+hand on the wall. He spoke again in pidgin Italian. “You go away like
+this,” he pointed to the thumb, “and come back like this,” he touched
+the little finger. Every one laughed.
+
+“Look,” said the captain. He spread the hand again. Again the
+candle-light made its shadows on the wall. He started with the upright
+thumb and named in their order the thumb and four fingers, “soto-tenente
+(the thumb), tenente (first finger), capitano (next finger), maggiore
+(next to the little finger), and tenente-colonello (the little finger).
+You go away soto-tenente! You come back soto-colonello!” They all
+laughed. The captain was having a great success with finger games. He
+looked at the priest and shouted, “Every night priest five against one!”
+They all laughed again.
+
+“You must go on leave at once,” the major said.
+
+“I would like to go with you and show you things,” the lieutenant said.
+
+“When you come back bring a phonograph.”
+
+“Bring good opera disks.”
+
+“Bring Caruso.”
+
+“Don’t bring Caruso. He bellows.”
+
+“Don’t you wish you could bellow like him?”
+
+“He bellows. I say he bellows!”
+
+“I would like you to go to Abruzzi,” the priest said. The others were
+shouting. “There is good hunting. You would like the people and though
+it is cold it is clear and dry. You could stay with my family. My father
+is a famous hunter.”
+
+“Come on,” said the captain. “We go whorehouse before it shuts.”
+
+“Good-night,” I said to the priest.
+
+“Good-night,” he said.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+When I came back to the front we still lived in that town. There were
+many more guns in the country around and the spring had come. The fields
+were green and there were small green shoots on the vines, the trees
+along the road had small leaves and a breeze came from the sea. I saw
+the town with the hill and the old castle above it in a cup in the hills
+with the mountains beyond, brown mountains with a little green on their
+slopes. In the town there were more guns, there were some new hospitals,
+you met British men and sometimes women, on the street, and a few more
+houses had been hit by shell fire. It was warm and like the spring and I
+walked down the alleyway of trees, warmed from the sun on the wall, and
+found we still lived in the same house and that it all looked the same
+as when I had left it. The door was open, there was a soldier sitting on
+a bench outside in the sun, an ambulance was waiting by the side door
+and inside the door, as I went in, there was the smell of marble floors
+and hospital. It was all as I had left it except that now it was spring.
+I looked in the door of the big room and saw the major sitting at his
+desk, the window open and the sunlight coming into the room. He did not
+see me and I did not know whether to go in and report or go upstairs
+first and clean up. I decided to go on upstairs.
+
+The room I shared with the lieutenant Rinaldi looked out on the
+courtyard. The window was open, my bed was made up with blankets and my
+things hung on the wall, the gas mask in an oblong tin can, the steel
+helmet on the same peg. At the foot of the bed was my flat trunk, and my
+winter boots, the leather shiny with oil, were on the trunk. My Austrian
+sniper’s rifle with its blued octagon barrel and the lovely dark walnut,
+cheek-fitted, _schutzen_ stock, hung over the two beds. The telescope
+that fitted it was, I remembered, locked in the trunk. The lieutenant,
+Rinaldi, lay asleep on the other bed. He woke when he heard me in the
+room and sat up.
+
+“Ciaou!” he said. “What kind of time did you have?”
+
+“Magnificent.”
+
+We shook hands and he put his arm around my neck and kissed me.
+
+“Oughf,” I said.
+
+“You’re dirty,” he said. “You ought to wash. Where did you go and what
+did you do? Tell me everything at once.”
+
+“I went everywhere. Milan, Florence, Rome, Naples, Villa San Giovanni,
+Messina, Taormina——”
+
+“You talk like a time-table. Did you have any beautiful adventures?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Where?”
+
+“Milano, Firenze, Roma, Napoli——”
+
+“That’s enough. Tell me really what was the best.”
+
+“In Milano.”
+
+“That was because it was first. Where did you meet her? In the Cova?
+Where did you go? How did you feel? Tell me everything at once. Did you
+stay all night?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“That’s nothing. Here now we have beautiful girls. New girls never been
+to the front before.”
+
+“Wonderful.”
+
+“You don’t believe me? We will go now this afternoon and see. And in the
+town we have beautiful English girls. I am now in love with Miss
+Barkley. I will take you to call. I will probably marry Miss Barkley.”
+
+“I have to get washed and report. Doesn’t anybody work now?”
+
+“Since you are gone we have nothing but frostbites, chilblains,
+jaundice, gonorrhea, self-inflicted wounds, pneumonia and hard and soft
+chancres. Every week some one gets wounded by rock fragments. There are
+a few real wounded. Next week the war starts again. Perhaps it starts
+again. They say so. Do you think I would do right to marry Miss
+Barkley—after the war of course?”
+
+“Absolutely,” I said and poured the basin full of water.
+
+“To-night you will tell me everything,” said Rinaldi. “Now I must go
+back to sleep to be fresh and beautiful for Miss Barkley.”
+
+I took off my tunic and shirt and washed in the cold water in the basin.
+While I rubbed myself with a towel I looked around the room and out the
+window and at Rinaldi lying with his eyes closed on the bed. He was
+good-looking, was my age, and he came from Amalfi. He loved being a
+surgeon and we were great friends. While I was looking at him he opened
+his eyes.
+
+“Have you any money?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Loan me fifty lire.”
+
+I dried my hands and took out my pocket-book from the inside of my tunic
+hanging on the wall. Rinaldi took the note, folded it without rising
+from the bed and slid it in his breeches pocket. He smiled, “I must make
+on Miss Barkley the impression of a man of sufficient wealth. You are my
+great and good friend and financial protector.”
+
+“Go to hell,” I said.
+
+That night at the mess I sat next to the priest and he was disappointed
+and suddenly hurt that I had not gone to the Abruzzi. He had written to
+his father that I was coming and they had made preparations. I myself
+felt as badly as he did and could not understand why I had not gone. It
+was what I had wanted to do and I tried to explain how one thing had led
+to another and finally he saw it and understood that I had really wanted
+to go and it was almost all right. I had drunk much wine and afterward
+coffee and Strega and I explained, winefully, how we did not do the
+things we wanted to do; we never did such things.
+
+We two were talking while the others argued. I had wanted to go to
+Abruzzi. I had gone to no place where the roads were frozen and hard as
+iron, where it was clear cold and dry and the snow was dry and powdery
+and hare-tracks in the snow and the peasants took off their hats and
+called you Lord and there was good hunting. I had gone to no such place
+but to the smoke of cafés and nights when the room whirled and you
+needed to look at the wall to make it stop, nights in bed, drunk, when
+you knew that that was all there was, and the strange excitement of
+waking and not knowing who it was with you, and the world all unreal in
+the dark and so exciting that you must resume again unknowing and not
+caring in the night, sure that this was all and all and all and not
+caring. Suddenly to care very much and to sleep to wake with it
+sometimes morning and all that had been there gone and everything sharp
+and hard and clear and sometimes a dispute about the cost. Sometimes
+still pleasant and fond and warm and breakfast and lunch. Sometimes all
+niceness gone and glad to get out on the street but always another day
+starting and then another night. I tried to tell about the night and the
+difference between the night and the day and how the night was better
+unless the day was very clean and cold and I could not tell it; as I
+cannot tell it now. But if you have had it you know. He had not had it
+but he understood that I had really wanted to go to the Abruzzi but had
+not gone and we were still friends, with many tastes alike, but with the
+difference between us. He had always known what I did not know and what,
+when I learned it, I was always able to forget. But I did not know that
+then, although I learned it later. In the meantime we were all at the
+mess, the meal was finished, and the argument went on. We two stopped
+talking and the captain shouted, “Priest not happy. Priest not happy
+without girls.”
+
+“I am happy,” said the priest.
+
+“Priest not happy. Priest wants Austrians to win the war,” the captain
+said. The others listened. The priest shook his head.
+
+“No,” he said.
+
+“Priest wants us never to attack. Don’t you want us never to attack?”
+
+“No. If there is a war I suppose we must attack.”
+
+“Must attack. Shall attack!”
+
+The priest nodded.
+
+“Leave him alone,” the major said. “He’s all right.”
+
+“He can’t do anything about it anyway,” the captain said. We all got up
+and left the table.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+
+The battery in the next garden woke me in the morning and I saw the sun
+coming through the window and got out of the bed. I went to the window
+and looked out. The gravel paths were moist and the grass was wet with
+dew. The battery fired twice and the air came each time like a blow and
+shook the window and made the front of my pajamas flap. I could not see
+the guns but they were evidently firing directly over us. It was a
+nuisance to have them there but it was a comfort that they were no
+bigger. As I looked out at the garden I heard a motor truck starting on
+the road. I dressed, went downstairs, had some coffee in the kitchen and
+went out to the garage.
+
+Ten cars were lined up side by side under the long shed. They were
+top-heavy, blunt-nosed ambulances, painted gray and built like
+moving-vans. The mechanics were working on one out in the yard. Three
+others were up in the mountains at dressing stations.
+
+“Do they ever shell that battery?” I asked one of the mechanics.
+
+“No, Signor Tenente. It is protected by the little hill.”
+
+“How’s everything?”
+
+“Not so bad. This machine is no good but the others march.” He stopped
+working and smiled. “Were you on permission?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+He wiped his hands on his jumper and grinned. “You have a good time?”
+The others all grinned too.
+
+“Fine,” I said. “What’s the matter with this machine?”
+
+“It’s no good. One thing after another.”
+
+“What’s the matter now?”
+
+“New rings.”
+
+I left them working, the car looking disgraced and empty with the engine
+open and parts spread on the work bench, and went in under the shed and
+looked at each of the cars. They were moderately clean, a few freshly
+washed, the others dusty. I looked at the tires carefully, looking for
+cuts or stone bruises. Everything seemed in good condition. It evidently
+made no difference whether I was there to look after things or not. I
+had imagined that the condition of the cars, whether or not things were
+obtainable, the smooth functioning of the business of removing wounded
+and sick from the dressing stations, hauling them back from the
+mountains to the clearing station and then distributing them to the
+hospitals named on their papers, depended to a considerable extent on
+myself. Evidently it did not matter whether I was there or not.
+
+“Has there been any trouble getting parts?” I asked the sergeant
+mechanic.
+
+“No, Signor Tenente.”
+
+“Where is the gasoline park now?”
+
+“At the same place.”
+
+“Good,” I said and went back to the house and drank another bowl of
+coffee at the mess table. The coffee was a pale gray and sweet with
+condensed milk. Outside the window it was a lovely spring morning. There
+was that beginning of a feeling of dryness in the nose that meant the
+day would be hot later on. That day I visited the posts in the mountains
+and was back in town late in the afternoon.
+
+The whole thing seemed to run better while I was away. The offensive was
+going to start again I heard. The division for which we worked were to
+attack at a place up the river and the major told me that I would see
+about the posts for during the attack. The attack would cross the river
+up above the narrow gorge and spread up the hillside. The posts for the
+cars would have to be as near the river as they could get and keep
+covered. They would, of course, be selected by the infantry but we were
+supposed to work it out. It was one of those things that gave you a
+false feeling of soldiering.
+
+I was very dusty and dirty and went up to my room to wash. Rinaldi was
+sitting on the bed with a copy of Hugo’s English grammar. He was
+dressed, wore his black boots, and his hair shone.
+
+“Splendid,” he said when he saw me. “You will come with me to see Miss
+Barkley.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Yes. You will please come and make me a good impression on her.”
+
+“All right. Wait till I get cleaned up.”
+
+“Wash up and come as you are.”
+
+I washed, brushed my hair and we started.
+
+“Wait a minute,” Rinaldi said. “Perhaps we should have a drink.” He
+opened his trunk and took out a bottle.
+
+“Not Strega,” I said.
+
+“No. Grappa.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+He poured two glasses and we touched them, first fingers extended. The
+grappa was very strong.
+
+“Another?”
+
+“All right,” I said. We drank the second grappa, Rinaldi put away the
+bottle and we went down the stairs. It was hot walking through the town
+but the sun was starting to go down and it was very pleasant. The
+British hospital was a big villa built by Germans before the war. Miss
+Barkley was in the garden. Another nurse was with her. We saw their
+white uniforms through the trees and walked toward them. Rinaldi
+saluted. I saluted too but more moderately.
+
+“How do you do?” Miss Barkley said. “You’re not an Italian, are you?”
+
+“Oh, no.”
+
+Rinaldi was talking with the other nurse. They were laughing.
+
+“What an odd thing—to be in the Italian army.”
+
+“It’s not really the army. It’s only the ambulance.”
+
+“It’s very odd though. Why did you do it?”
+
+“I don’t know,” I said. “There isn’t always an explanation for
+everything.”
+
+“Oh, isn’t there? I was brought up to think there was.”
+
+“That’s awfully nice.”
+
+“_Do_ we have to go on and talk this way?”
+
+“No,” I said.
+
+“That’s a relief. Isn’t it?”
+
+“What is the stick?” I asked. Miss Barkley was quite tall. She wore what
+seemed to me to be a nurse’s uniform, was blonde and had a tawny skin
+and gray eyes. I thought she was very beautiful. She was carrying a thin
+rattan stick like a toy riding-crop, bound in leather.
+
+“It belonged to a boy who was killed last year.”
+
+“I’m awfully sorry.”
+
+“He was a very nice boy. He was going to marry me and he was killed in
+the Somme.”
+
+“It was a ghastly show.”
+
+“Were you there?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“I’ve heard about it,” she said. “There’s not really any war of that
+sort down here. They sent me the little stick. His mother sent it to me.
+They returned it with his things.”
+
+“Had you been engaged long?”
+
+“Eight years. We grew up together.”
+
+“And why didn’t you marry?”
+
+“I don’t know,” she said. “I was a fool not to. I could have given him
+that anyway. But I thought it would be bad for him.”
+
+“I see.”
+
+“Have you ever loved any one?”
+
+“No,” I said.
+
+We sat down on a bench and I looked at her.
+
+“You have beautiful hair,” I said.
+
+“Do you like it?”
+
+“Very much.”
+
+“I was going to cut it all off when he died.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“I wanted to do something for him. You see I didn’t care about the other
+thing and he could have had it all. He could have had anything he wanted
+if I would have known. I would have married him or anything. I know all
+about it now. But then he wanted to go to war and I didn’t know.”
+
+I did not say anything.
+
+“I didn’t know about anything then. I thought it would be worse for him.
+I thought perhaps he couldn’t stand it and then of course he was killed
+and that was the end of it.”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“Oh, yes,” she said. “That’s the end of it.”
+
+We looked at Rinaldi talking with the other nurse.
+
+“What is her name?”
+
+“Ferguson. Helen Ferguson. Your friend is a doctor, isn’t he?”
+
+“Yes. He’s very good.”
+
+“That’s splendid. You rarely find any one any good this close to the
+front. This is close to the front, isn’t it?”
+
+“Quite.”
+
+“It’s a silly front,” she said. “But it’s very beautiful. Are they going
+to have an offensive?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then we’ll have to work. There’s no work now.”
+
+“Have you done nursing long?”
+
+“Since the end of ’fifteen. I started when he did. I remember having a
+silly idea he might come to the hospital where I was. With a sabre cut,
+I suppose, and a bandage around his head. Or shot through the shoulder.
+Something picturesque.”
+
+“This is the picturesque front,” I said.
+
+“Yes,” she said. “People can’t realize what France is like. If they did,
+it couldn’t all go on. He didn’t have a sabre cut. They blew him all to
+bits.”
+
+I didn’t say anything.
+
+“Do you suppose it will always go on?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“What’s to stop it?”
+
+“It will crack somewhere.”
+
+“We’ll crack. We’ll crack in France. They can’t go on doing things like
+the Somme and not crack.”
+
+“They won’t crack here,” I said.
+
+“You think not?”
+
+“No. They did very well last summer.”
+
+“They may crack,” she said. “Anybody may crack.”
+
+“The Germans too.”
+
+“No,” she said. “I think not.”
+
+We went over toward Rinaldi and Miss Ferguson.
+
+“You love Italy?” Rinaldi asked Miss Ferguson in English.
+
+“Quite well.”
+
+“No understand,” Rinaldi shook his head.
+
+“Abbastanza bene,” I translated. He shook his head.
+
+“That is not good. You love England?”
+
+“Not too well. I’m Scotch, you see.”
+
+Rinaldi looked at me blankly.
+
+“She’s Scotch, so she loves Scotland better than England,” I said in
+Italian.
+
+“But Scotland is England.”
+
+I translated this for Miss Ferguson.
+
+“Pas encore,” said Miss Ferguson.
+
+“Not really?”
+
+“Never. We do not like the English.”
+
+“Not like the English? Not like Miss Barkley?”
+
+“Oh, that’s different. You mustn’t take everything so literally.”
+
+After a while we said good-night and left. Walking home Rinaldi said,
+“Miss Barkley prefers you to me. That is very clear. But the little
+Scotch one is very nice.”
+
+“Very,” I said. I had not noticed her. “You like her?”
+
+“No,” said Rinaldi.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V
+
+The next afternoon I went to call on Miss Barkley again. She was not in
+the garden and I went to the side door of the villa where the ambulances
+drove up. Inside I saw the head nurse, who said Miss Barkley was on
+duty—“there’s a war on, you know.”
+
+I said I knew.
+
+“You’re the American in the Italian army?” she asked.
+
+“Yes, ma’am.”
+
+“How did you happen to do that? Why didn’t you join up with us?”
+
+“I don’t know,” I said. “Could I join now?”
+
+“I’m afraid not now. Tell me. Why did you join up with the Italians?”
+
+“I was in Italy,” I said, “and I spoke Italian.”
+
+“Oh,” she said. “I’m learning it. It’s a beautiful language.”
+
+“Somebody said you should be able to learn it in two weeks.”
+
+“Oh, I’ll not learn it in two weeks. I’ve studied it for months now. You
+may come and see her after seven o’clock if you wish. She’ll be off
+then. But don’t bring a lot of Italians.”
+
+“Not even for the beautiful language?”
+
+“No. Nor for the beautiful uniforms.”
+
+“Good-evening,” I said.
+
+“A rivederci, Tenente.”
+
+“A rivederla.” I saluted and went out. It was impossible to salute
+foreigners as an Italian, without embarrassment. The Italian salute
+never seemed made for export.
+
+The day had been hot. I had been up the river to the bridgehead at
+Plava. It was there that the offensive was to begin. It had been
+impossible to advance on the far side the year before because there was
+only one road leading down from the pass to the pontoon bridge and it
+was under machine-gun and shell fire for nearly a mile. It was not wide
+enough either to carry all the transport for an offensive and the
+Austrians could make a shambles out of it. But the Italians had crossed
+and spread out a little way on the far side to hold about a mile and a
+half on the Austrian side of the river. It was a nasty place and the
+Austrians should not have let them hold it. I suppose it was mutual
+tolerance because the Austrians still kept a bridgehead further down the
+river. The Austrian trenches were above on the hillside only a few yards
+from the Italian lines. There had been a little town but it was all
+rubble. There was what was left of a railway station and a smashed
+permanent bridge that could not be repaired and used because it was in
+plain sight.
+
+I went along the narrow road down toward the river, left the car at the
+dressing station under the hill, crossed the pontoon bridge, which was
+protected by a shoulder of the mountain, and went through the trenches
+in the smashed-down town and along the edge of the slope. Everybody was
+in the dugouts. There were racks of rockets standing to be touched off
+to call for help from the artillery or to signal with if the telephone
+wires were cut. It was quiet, hot and dirty. I looked across the wire at
+the Austrian lines. Nobody was in sight. I had a drink with a captain
+that I knew in one of the dugouts and went back across the bridge.
+
+A new wide road was being finished that would go over the mountain and
+zig-zag down to the bridge. When this road was finished the offensive
+would start. It came down through the forest in sharp turns. The system
+was to bring everything down the new road and take the empty trucks,
+carts and loaded ambulances and all returning traffic up the old narrow
+road. The dressing station was on the Austrian side of the river under
+the edge of the hill and stretcher-bearers would bring the wounded back
+across the pontoon bridge. It would be the same when the offensive
+started. As far as I could make out the last mile or so of the new road
+where it started to level out would be able to be shelled steadily by
+the Austrians. It looked as though it might be a mess. But I found a
+place where the cars would be sheltered after they had passed that last
+bad-looking bit and could wait for the wounded to be brought across the
+pontoon bridge. I would have liked to drive over the new road but it was
+not yet finished. It looked wide and well made with a good grade and the
+turns looked very impressive where you could see them through openings
+in the forest on the mountain side. The cars would be all right with
+their good metal-to-metal brakes and anyway, coming down, they would not
+be loaded. I drove back up the narrow road.
+
+Two carabinieri held the car up. A shell had fallen and while we waited
+three others fell up the road. They were seventy-sevens and came with a
+whishing rush of air, a hard bright burst and flash and then gray smoke
+that blew across the road. The carabinieri waved us to go on. Passing
+where the shells had landed I avoided the small broken places and
+smelled the high explosive and the smell of blasted clay and stone and
+freshly shattered flint. I drove back to Gorizia and our villa and, as I
+said, went to call on Miss Barkley, who was on duty.
+
+At dinner I ate very quickly and left for the villa where the British
+had their hospital. It was really very large and beautiful and there
+were fine trees in the grounds. Miss Barkley was sitting on a bench in
+the garden. Miss Ferguson was with her. They seemed glad to see me and
+in a little while Miss Ferguson excused herself and went away.
+
+“I’ll leave you two,” she said. “You get along very well without me.”
+
+“Don’t go, Helen,” Miss Barkley said.
+
+“I’d really rather. I must write some letters.”
+
+“Good-night,” I said.
+
+“Good-night, Mr. Henry.”
+
+“Don’t write anything that will bother the censor.”
+
+“Don’t worry. I only write about what a beautiful place we live in and
+how brave the Italians are.”
+
+“That way you’ll be decorated.”
+
+“That will be nice. Good-night, Catherine.”
+
+“I’ll see you in a little while,” Miss Barkley said. Miss Ferguson
+walked away in the dark.
+
+“She’s nice,” I said.
+
+“Oh, yes, she’s very nice. She’s a nurse.”
+
+“Aren’t you a nurse?”
+
+“Oh, no. I’m something called a V. A. D. We work very hard but no one
+trusts us.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“They don’t trust us when there’s nothing going on. When there is really
+work they trust us.”
+
+“What is the difference?”
+
+“A nurse is like a doctor. It takes a long time to be. A V. A. D. is a
+short cut.”
+
+“I see.”
+
+“The Italians didn’t want women so near the front. So we’re all on very
+special behavior. We don’t go out.”
+
+“I can come here though.”
+
+“Oh, yes. We’re not cloistered.”
+
+“Let’s drop the war.”
+
+“It’s very hard. There’s no place to drop it.”
+
+“Let’s drop it anyway.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+We looked at each other in the dark. I thought she was very beautiful
+and I took her hand. She let me take it and I held it and put my arm
+around under her arm.
+
+“No,” she said. I kept my arm where it was.
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Yes,” I said. “Please.” I leaned forward in the dark to kiss her and
+there was a sharp stinging flash. She had slapped my face hard. Her hand
+had hit my nose and eyes, and tears came in my eyes from the reflex.
+
+“I’m so sorry,” she said. I felt I had a certain advantage.
+
+“You were quite right.”
+
+“I’m dreadfully sorry,” she said. “I just couldn’t stand the
+nurse’s-evening-off aspect of it. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I did hurt
+you, didn’t I?”
+
+She was looking at me in the dark. I was angry and yet certain, seeing
+it all ahead like the moves in a chess game.
+
+“You did exactly right,” I said. “I don’t mind at all.”
+
+“Poor man.”
+
+“You see I’ve been leading a sort of a funny life. And I never even talk
+English. And then you are so very beautiful.” I looked at her.
+
+“You don’t need to say a lot of nonsense. I said I was sorry. We do get
+along.”
+
+“Yes,” I said. “And we have gotten away from the war.”
+
+She laughed. It was the first time I had ever heard her laugh. I watched
+her face.
+
+“You are sweet,” she said.
+
+“No, I’m not.”
+
+“Yes. You are a dear. I’d be glad to kiss you if you don’t mind.”
+
+I looked in her eyes and put my arm around her as I had before and
+kissed her. I kissed her hard and held her tight and tried to open her
+lips; they were closed tight. I was still angry and as I held her
+suddenly she shivered. I held her close against me and could feel her
+heart beating and her lips opened and her head went back against my hand
+and then she was crying on my shoulder.
+
+“Oh, darling,” she said. “You will be good to me, won’t you?”
+
+What the hell, I thought. I stroked her hair and patted her shoulder.
+She was crying.
+
+“You will, won’t you?” She looked up at me. “Because we’re going to have
+a strange life.”
+
+After a while I walked with her to the door of the villa and she went in
+and I walked home. Back at the villa I went upstairs to the room.
+Rinaldi was lying on his bed. He looked at me.
+
+“So you make progress with Miss Barkley?”
+
+“We are friends.”
+
+“You have that pleasant air of a dog in heat.”
+
+I did not understand the word.
+
+“Of a what?”
+
+He explained.
+
+“You,” I said, “have that pleasant air of a dog who—”
+
+“Stop it,” he said. “In a little while we would say insulting things.”
+He laughed.
+
+“Good-night,” I said.
+
+“Good-night, little puppy.”
+
+I knocked over his candle with the pillow and got into bed in the dark.
+
+Rinaldi picked up the candle, lit it and went on reading.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VI
+
+I was away for two days at the posts. When I got home it was too late
+and I did not see Miss Barkley until the next evening. She was not in
+the garden and I had to wait in the office of the hospital until she
+came down. There were many marble busts on painted wooden pillars along
+the walls of the room they used for an office. The hall too, that the
+office opened on, was lined with them. They had the complete marble
+quality of all looking alike. Sculpture had always seemed a dull
+business—still, bronzes looked like something. But marble busts all
+looked like a cemetery. There was one fine cemetery though—the one at
+Pisa. Genoa was the place to see the bad marbles. This had been the
+villa of a very wealthy German and the busts must have cost him plenty.
+I wondered who had done them and how much he got. I tried to make out
+whether they were members of the family or what; but they were all
+uniformly classical. You could not tell anything about them.
+
+I sat on a chair and held my cap. We were supposed to wear steel helmets
+even in Gorizia but they were uncomfortable and too bloody theatrical in
+a town where the civilian inhabitants had not been evacuated. I wore one
+when we went up to the posts and carried an English gas mask. We were
+just beginning to get some of them. They were a real mask. Also we were
+required to wear an automatic pistol; even doctors and sanitary
+officers. I felt it against the back of the chair. You were liable to
+arrest if you did not have one worn in plain sight. Rinaldi carried a
+holster stuffed with toilet paper. I wore a real one and felt like a
+gunman until I practised firing it. It was an Astra 7.65 caliber with a
+short barrel and it jumped so sharply when you let it off that there was
+no question of hitting anything. I practised with it, holding below the
+target and trying to master the jerk of the ridiculous short barrel
+until I could hit within a yard of where I aimed at twenty paces and
+then the ridiculousness of carrying a pistol at all came over me and I
+soon forgot it and carried it flopping against the small of my back with
+no feeling at all except a vague sort of shame when I met
+English-speaking people. I sat now in the chair and an orderly of some
+sort looked at me disapprovingly from behind a desk while I looked at
+the marble floor, the pillars with the marble busts, and the frescoes on
+the wall and waited for Miss Barkley. The frescoes were not bad. Any
+frescoes were good when they started to peel and flake off.
+
+I saw Catherine Barkley coming down the hall, and stood up. She did not
+seem tall walking toward me but she looked very lovely.
+
+“Good-evening, Mr. Henry,” she said.
+
+“How do you do?” I said. The orderly was listening behind the desk.
+
+“Shall we sit here or go out in the garden?”
+
+“Let’s go out. It’s much cooler.”
+
+I walked behind her out into the garden, the orderly looking after us.
+When we were out on the gravel drive she said, “Where have you been?”
+
+“I’ve been out on post.”
+
+“You couldn’t have sent me a note?”
+
+“No,” I said. “Not very well. I thought I was coming back.”
+
+“You ought to have let me know, darling.”
+
+We were off the driveway, walking under the trees. I took her hands,
+then stopped and kissed her.
+
+“Isn’t there anywhere we can go?”
+
+“No,” she said. “We have to just walk here. You’ve been away a long
+time.”
+
+“This is the third day. But I’m back now.”
+
+She looked at me, “And you do love me?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You did say you loved me, didn’t you?”
+
+“Yes,” I lied. “I love you.” I had not said it before.
+
+“And you call me Catherine?”
+
+“Catherine.” We walked on a way and were stopped under a tree.
+
+“Say, ‘I’ve come back to Catherine in the night.’”
+
+“I’ve come back to Catherine in the night.”
+
+“Oh, darling, you have come back, haven’t you?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I love you so and it’s been awful. You won’t go away?”
+
+“No. I’ll always come back.”
+
+“Oh, I love you so. Please put your hand there again.”
+
+“It’s not been away.” I turned her so I could see her face when I kissed
+her and I saw that her eyes were shut. I kissed both her shut eyes. I
+thought she was probably a little crazy. It was all right if she was. I
+did not care what I was getting into. This was better than going every
+evening to the house for officers where the girls climbed all over you
+and put your cap on backward as a sign of affection between their trips
+upstairs with brother officers. I knew I did not love Catherine Barkley
+nor had any idea of loving her. This was a game, like bridge, in which
+you said things instead of playing cards. Like bridge you had to pretend
+you were playing for money or playing for some stakes. Nobody had
+mentioned what the stakes were. It was all right with me.
+
+“I wish there was some place we could go,” I said. I was experiencing
+the masculine difficulty of making love very long standing up.
+
+“There isn’t any place,” she said. She came back from wherever she had
+been.
+
+“We might sit there just for a little while.”
+
+We sat on the flat stone bench and I held Catherine Barkley’s hand. She
+would not let me put my arm around her.
+
+“Are you very tired?” she asked.
+
+“No.”
+
+She looked down at the grass.
+
+“This is a rotten game we play, isn’t it?”
+
+“What game?”
+
+“Don’t be dull.”
+
+“I’m not, on purpose.”
+
+“You’re a nice boy,” she said. “And you play it as well as you know how.
+But it’s a rotten game.”
+
+“Do you always know what people think?”
+
+“Not always. But I do with you. You don’t have to pretend you love me.
+That’s over for the evening. Is there anything you’d like to talk
+about?”
+
+“But I do love you.”
+
+“Please let’s not lie when we don’t have to. I had a very fine little
+show and I’m all right now. You see I’m not mad and I’m not gone off.
+It’s only a little sometimes.”
+
+I pressed her hand, “Dear Catherine.”
+
+“It sounds very funny now—Catherine. You don’t pronounce it very much
+alike. But you’re very nice. You’re a very good boy.”
+
+“That’s what the priest said.”
+
+“Yes, you’re very good. And you will come and see me?”
+
+“Of course.”
+
+“And you don’t have to say you love me. That’s all over for a while.”
+She stood up and put out her hand. “Good-night.”
+
+I wanted to kiss her.
+
+“No,” she said. “I’m awfully tired.”
+
+“Kiss me, though,” I said.
+
+“I’m awfully tired, darling.”
+
+“Kiss me.”
+
+“Do you want to very much?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+We kissed and she broke away suddenly. “No. Good-night, please,
+darling.” We walked to the door and I saw her go in and down the hall. I
+liked to watch her move. She went on down the hall. I went on home. It
+was a hot night and there was a good deal going on up in the mountains.
+I watched the flashes on San Gabriele.
+
+I stopped in front of the Villa Rossa. The shutters were up but it was
+still going on inside. Somebody was singing. I went on home. Rinaldi
+came in while I was undressing.
+
+“Ah, ha!” he said. “It does not go so well. Baby is puzzled.”
+
+“Where have you been?”
+
+“At the Villa Rossa. It was very edifying, baby. We all sang. Where have
+you been?”
+
+“Calling on the British.”
+
+“Thank God I did not become involved with the British.”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII
+
+I came back the next afternoon from our first mountain post and stopped
+the car at the _smistimento_ where the wounded and sick were sorted by
+their papers and the papers marked for the different hospitals. I had
+been driving and I sat in the car and the driver took the papers in. It
+was a hot day and the sky was very bright and blue and the road was
+white and dusty. I sat in the high seat of the Fiat and thought about
+nothing. A regiment went by in the road and I watched them pass. The men
+were hot and sweating. Some wore their steel helmets but most of them
+carried them slung from their packs. Most of the helmets were too big
+and came down almost over the ears of the men who wore them. The
+officers all wore helmets; better-fitting helmets. It was half of the
+brigata Basilicata. I identified them by their red and white striped
+collar mark. There were stragglers going by long after the regiment had
+passed—men who could not keep up with their platoons. They were sweaty,
+dusty and tired. Some looked pretty bad. A soldier came along after the
+last of the stragglers. He was walking with a limp. He stopped and sat
+down beside the road. I got down and went over.
+
+“What’s the matter?”
+
+He looked at me, then stood up.
+
+“I’m going on.”
+
+“What’s the trouble?”
+
+“—— the war.”
+
+“What’s wrong with your leg?”
+
+“It’s not my leg. I got a rupture.”
+
+“Why don’t you ride with the transport?” I asked. “Why don’t you go to
+the hospital?”
+
+“They won’t let me. The lieutenant said I slipped the truss on purpose.”
+
+“Let me feel it.”
+
+“It’s way out.”
+
+“Which side is it on?”
+
+“Here.”
+
+I felt it.
+
+“Cough,” I said.
+
+“I’m afraid it will make it bigger. It’s twice as big as it was this
+morning.”
+
+“Sit down,” I said. “As soon as I get the papers on these wounded I’ll
+take you along the road and drop you with your medical officers.”
+
+“He’ll say I did it on purpose.”
+
+“They can’t do anything,” I said. “It’s not a wound. You’ve had it
+before, haven’t you?”
+
+“But I lost the truss.”
+
+“They’ll send you to a hospital.”
+
+“Can’t I stay here, Tenente?”
+
+“No, I haven’t any papers for you.”
+
+The driver came out of the door with the papers for the wounded in the
+car.
+
+“Four for 105. Two for 132,” he said. They were hospitals beyond the
+river.
+
+“You drive,” I said. I helped the soldier with the rupture up on the
+seat with us.
+
+“You speak English?” he asked.
+
+“Sure.”
+
+“How you like this goddam war?”
+
+“Rotten.”
+
+“I say it’s rotten. Jesus Christ, I say it’s rotten.”
+
+“Were you in the States?”
+
+“Sure. In Pittsburg. I knew you was an American.”
+
+“Don’t I talk Italian good enough?”
+
+“I knew you was an American all right.”
+
+“Another American,” said the driver in Italian looking at the hernia
+man.
+
+“Listen, lootenant. Do you have to take me to that regiment?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Because the captain doctor knew I had this rupture. I threw away the
+goddam truss so it would get bad and I wouldn’t have to go to the line
+again.”
+
+“I see.”
+
+“Couldn’t you take me no place else?”
+
+“If it was closer to the front I could take you to a first medical post.
+But back here you’ve got to have papers.”
+
+“If I go back they’ll make me get operated on and then they’ll put me in
+the line all the time.”
+
+I thought it over.
+
+“You wouldn’t want to go in the line all the time, would you?” he asked.
+
+“No.”
+
+“Jesus Christ, ain’t this a goddam war?”
+
+“Listen,” I said. “You get out and fall down by the road and get a bump
+on your head and I’ll pick you up on our way back and take you to a
+hospital. We’ll stop by the road here, Aldo.” We stopped at the side of
+the road. I helped him down.
+
+“I’ll be right here, lieutenant,” he said.
+
+“So long,” I said. We went on and passed the regiment about a mile
+ahead, then crossed the river, cloudy with snow-water and running fast
+through the spiles of the bridge, to ride along the road across the
+plain and deliver the wounded at the two hospitals. I drove coming back
+and went fast with the empty car to find the man from Pittsburg. First
+we passed the regiment, hotter and slower than ever: then the
+stragglers. Then we saw a horse ambulance stopped by the road. Two men
+were lifting the hernia man to put him in. They had come back for him.
+He shook his head at me. His helmet was off and his forehead was
+bleeding below the hair line. His nose was skinned and there was dust on
+the bloody patch and dust in his hair.
+
+“Look at the bump, lieutenant!” he shouted. “Nothing to do. They come
+back for me.”
+
+
+
+When I got back to the villa it was five o’clock and I went out where we
+washed the cars, to take a shower. Then I made out my report in my room,
+sitting in my trousers and an undershirt in front of the open window. In
+two days the offensive was to start and I would go with the cars to
+Plava. It was a long time since I had written to the States and I knew I
+should write but I had let it go so long that it was almost impossible
+to write now. There was nothing to write about. I sent a couple of army
+Zona di Guerra post-cards, crossing out everything except, I am well.
+That should handle them. Those post-cards would be very fine in America;
+strange and mysterious. This was a strange and mysterious war zone but I
+supposed it was quite well run and grim compared to other wars with the
+Austrians. The Austrian army was created to give Napoleon victories; any
+Napoleon. I wished we had a Napoleon, but instead we had Il Generale
+Cadorna, fat and prosperous, and Vittorio Emmanuele, the tiny man with
+the long thin neck and the goat beard. Over on the right they had the
+Duke of Aosta. Maybe he was too good-looking to be a great general but
+he looked like a man. Lots of them would have liked him to be king. He
+looked like a king. He was the King’s uncle and commanded the third
+army. We were in the second army. There were some British batteries up
+with the third army. I had met two gunners from that lot, in Milan. They
+were very nice and we had a big evening. They were big and shy and
+embarrassed and very appreciative together of anything that happened. I
+wish that I was with the British. It would have been much simpler. Still
+I would probably have been killed. Not in this ambulance business. Yes,
+even in the ambulance business. British ambulance drivers were killed
+sometimes. Well, I knew I would not be killed. Not in this war. It did
+not have anything to do with me. It seemed no more dangerous to me
+myself than war in the movies. I wished to God it was over though. Maybe
+it would finish this summer. Maybe the Austrians would crack. They had
+always cracked in other wars. What was the matter with this war?
+Everybody said the French were through. Rinaldi said that the French had
+mutinied and troops marched on Paris. I asked him what happened and he
+said, “Oh, they stopped them.” I wanted to go to Austria without war. I
+wanted to go to the Black Forest. I wanted to go to the Hartz Mountains.
+Where were the Hartz Mountains anyway? They were fighting in the
+Carpathians. I did not want to go there anyway. It might be good though.
+I could go to Spain if there was no war. The sun was going down and the
+day was cooling off. After supper I would go and see Catherine Barkley.
+I wished she were here now. I wished I were in Milan with her. I would
+like to eat at the Cova and then walk down the Via Manzoni in the hot
+evening and cross over and turn off along the canal and go to the hotel
+with Catherine Barkley. Maybe she would. Maybe she would pretend that I
+was her boy that was killed and we would go in the front door and the
+porter would take off his cap and I would stop at the concierge’s desk
+and ask for the key and she would stand by the elevator and then we
+would get in the elevator and it would go up very slowly clicking at all
+the floors and then our floor and the boy would open the door and stand
+there and she would step out and I would step out and we would walk down
+the hall and I would put the key in the door and open it and go in and
+then take down the telephone and ask them to send a bottle of capri
+bianca in a silver bucket full of ice and you would hear the ice against
+the pail coming down the corridor and the boy would knock and I would
+say leave it outside the door please. Because we would not wear any
+clothes because it was so hot and the window open and the swallows
+flying over the roofs of the houses and when it was dark afterward and
+you went to the window very small bats hunting over the houses and close
+down over the trees and we would drink the capri and the door locked and
+it hot and only a sheet and the whole night and we would both love each
+other all night in the hot night in Milan. That was how it ought to be.
+I would eat quickly and go and see Catherine Barkley.
+
+They talked too much at the mess and I drank wine because to-night we
+were not all brothers unless I drank a little and talked with the priest
+about Archbishop Ireland who was, it seemed, a noble man and with whose
+injustice, the injustices he had received and in which I participated as
+an American, and of which I had never heard, I feigned acquaintance. It
+would have been impolite not to have known something of them when I had
+listened to such a splendid explanation of their causes which were,
+after all, it seemed, misunderstandings. I thought he had a fine name
+and he came from Minnesota which made a lovely name: Ireland of
+Minnesota, Ireland of Wisconsin, Ireland of Michigan. What made it
+pretty was that it sounded like Island. No that wasn’t it. There was
+more to it than that. Yes, father. That is true, father. Perhaps,
+father. No, father. Well, maybe yes, father. You know more about it than
+I do, father. The priest was good but dull. The officers were not good
+but dull. The King was good but dull. The wine was bad but not dull. It
+took the enamel off your teeth and left it on the roof of your mouth.
+
+“And the priest was locked up,” Rocca said, “because they found the
+three per cent bonds on his person. It was in France of course. Here
+they would never have arrested him. He denied all knowledge of the five
+per cent bonds. This took place at Béziers. I was there and reading of
+it in the paper, went to the jail and asked to see the priest. It was
+quite evident he had stolen the bonds.”
+
+“I don’t believe a word of this,” Rinaldi said.
+
+“Just as you like,” Rocca said. “But I am telling it for our priest
+here. It is very informative. He is a priest; he will appreciate it.”
+
+The priest smiled. “Go on,” he said. “I am listening.”
+
+“Of course some of the bonds were not accounted for but the priest had
+all of the three per cent bonds and several local obligations, I forget
+exactly what they were. So I went to the jail, now this is the point of
+the story, and I stood outside his cell and I said as though I were
+going to confession, ‘Bless me, father, for you have sinned.’”
+
+There was great laughter from everybody.
+
+“And what did he say?” asked the priest. Rocca ignored this and went on
+to explain the joke to me. “You see the point, don’t you?” It seemed it
+was a very funny joke if you understood it properly. They poured me more
+wine and I told the story about the English private soldier who was
+placed under the shower bath. Then the major told the story of the
+eleven Czecho-slovaks and the Hungarian corporal. After some more wine I
+told the story of the jockey who found the penny. The major said there
+was an Italian story something like that about the duchess who could not
+sleep at night. At this point the priest left and I told the story about
+the travelling salesman who arrived at five o’clock in the morning at
+Marseilles when the mistral was blowing. The major said he had heard a
+report that I could drink. I denied this. He said it was true and by the
+corpse of Bacchus we would test whether it was true or not. Not Bacchus,
+I said. Not Bacchus. Yes, Bacchus, he said. I should drink cup for cup
+and glass for glass with Bassi, Fillipo Vincenza. Bassi said no that was
+no test because he had already drunk twice as much as I. I said that was
+a foul lie and, Bacchus or no Bacchus, Fillipo Vincenza Bassi or Bassi
+Fillippo Vicenza had never touched a drop all evening and what was his
+name anyway? He said was my name Frederico Enrico or Enrico Federico? I
+said let the best man win, Bacchus barred, and the major started us with
+red wine in mugs. Half-way through the wine I did not want any more. I
+remembered where I was going.
+
+“Bassi wins,” I said. “He’s a better man than I am. I have to go.”
+
+“He does really,” said Rinaldi. “He has a rendezvous. I know all about
+it.”
+
+“I have to go.”
+
+“Another night,” said Bassi. “Another night when you feel stronger.” He
+slapped me on the shoulder. There were lighted candles on the table. All
+the officers were very happy. “Good-night, gentlemen,” I said.
+
+Rinaldi went out with me. We stood outside the door on the patch and he
+said, “You’d better not go up there drunk.”
+
+“I’m not drunk, Rinin. Really.”
+
+“You’d better chew some coffee.”
+
+“Nonsense.”
+
+“I’ll get some, baby. You walk up and down.” He came back with a handful
+of roasted coffee beans. “Chew those, baby, and God be with you.”
+
+“Bacchus,” I said.
+
+“I’ll walk down with you.”
+
+“I’m perfectly all right.”
+
+We walked along together through the town and I chewed the coffee. At
+the gate of the driveway that led up to the British villa, Rinaldi said
+good-night.
+
+“Good-night,” I said. “Why don’t you come in?”
+
+He shook his head. “No,” he said, “I like the simpler pleasures.”
+
+“Thank you for the coffee beans.”
+
+“Nothing, baby. Nothing.”
+
+I started down the driveway. The outlines of the cypresses that lined it
+were sharp and clear. I looked back and saw Rinaldi standing watching me
+and waved to him.
+
+I sat in the reception hall of the villa, waiting for Catherine Barkley
+to come down. Some one was coming down the hall-way. I stood up, but it
+was not Catherine. It was Miss Ferguson.
+
+“Hello,” she said. “Catherine asked me to tell you she was sorry she
+couldn’t see you this evening.”
+
+“I’m so sorry. I hope she’s not ill.”
+
+“She’s not awfully well.”
+
+“Will you tell her how sorry I am?”
+
+“Yes, I will.”
+
+“Do you think it would be any good to try and see her to-morrow?”
+
+“Yes, I do.”
+
+“Thank you very much,” I said. “Good-night.”
+
+I went out the door and suddenly I felt lonely and empty. I had treated
+seeing Catherine very lightly, I had gotten somewhat drunk and had
+nearly forgotten to come but when I could not see her there I was
+feeling lonely and hollow.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII
+
+The next afternoon we heard there was to be an attack up the river that
+night and that we were to take four cars there. Nobody knew anything
+about it although they all spoke with great positiveness and strategical
+knowledge. I was riding in the first car and as we passed the entry to
+the British hospital I told the driver to stop. The other cars pulled
+up. I got out and told the driver to go on and that if we had not caught
+up to them at the junction of the road to Cormons to wait there. I
+hurried up the driveway and inside the reception hall I asked for Miss
+Barkley.
+
+“She’s on duty.”
+
+“Could I see her just for a moment?”
+
+They sent an orderly to see and she came back with him.
+
+“I stopped to ask if you were better. They told me you were on duty, so
+I asked to see you.”
+
+“I’m quite well,” she said, “I think the heat knocked me over
+yesterday.”
+
+“I have to go.”
+
+“I’ll just step out the door a minute.”
+
+“And you’re all right?” I asked outside.
+
+“Yes, darling. Are you coming to-night?”
+
+“No. I’m leaving now for a show up above Plava.”
+
+“A show?”
+
+“I don’t think it’s anything.”
+
+“And you’ll be back?”
+
+“To-morrow.”
+
+She was unclasping something from her neck. She put it in my hand. “It’s
+a Saint Anthony,” she said. “And come to-morrow night.”
+
+“You’re not a Catholic, are you?”
+
+“No. But they say a Saint Anthony’s very useful.”
+
+“I’ll take care of him for you. Good-by.”
+
+“No,” she said, “not good-by.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+“Be a good boy and be careful. No, you can’t kiss me here. You can’t.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+I looked back and saw her standing on the steps. She waved and I kissed
+my hand and held it out. She waved again and then I was out of the
+driveway and climbing up into the seat of the ambulance and we started.
+The Saint Anthony was in a little white metal capsule. I opened the
+capsule and spilled him out into my hand.
+
+“Saint Anthony?” asked the driver.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I have one.” His right hand left the wheel and opened a button on his
+tunic and pulled it out from under his shirt.
+
+“See?”
+
+I put my Saint Anthony back in the capsule, spilled the thin gold chain
+together and put it all in my breast pocket.
+
+“You don’t wear him?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“It’s better to wear him. That’s what it’s for.”
+
+“All right,” I said. I undid the clasp of the gold chain and put it
+around my neck and clasped it. The saint hung down on the outside of my
+uniform and I undid the throat of my tunic, unbuttoned the shirt collar
+and dropped him in under the shirt. I felt him in his metal box against
+my chest while we drove. Then I forgot about him. After I was wounded I
+never found him. Some one probably got it at one of the dressing
+stations.
+
+We drove fast when we were over the bridge and soon we saw the dust of
+the other cars ahead down the road. The road curved and we saw the three
+cars looking quite small, the dust rising from the wheels and going off
+through the trees. We caught them and passed them and turned off on a
+road that climbed up into the hills. Driving in convoy is not unpleasant
+if you are the first car and I settled back in the seat and watched the
+country. We were in the foot-hills on the near side of the river and as
+the road mounted there were the high mountains off to the north with
+snow still on the tops. I looked back and saw the three cars all
+climbing, spaced by the interval of their dust. We passed a long column
+of loaded mules, the drivers walking along beside the mules wearing red
+fezzes. They were bersaglieri.
+
+Beyond the mule train the road was empty and we climbed through the
+hills and then went down over the shoulder of a long hill into a
+river-valley. There were trees along both sides of the road and through
+the right line of trees I saw the river, the water clear, fast and
+shallow. The river was low and there were stretches of sand and pebbles
+with a narrow channel of water and sometimes the water spread like a
+sheen over the pebbly bed. Close to the bank I saw deep pools, the water
+blue like the sky. I saw arched stone bridges over the river where
+tracks turned off from the road and we passed stone farmhouses with pear
+trees candelabraed against their south walls and low stone walls in the
+fields. The road went up the valley a long way and then we turned off
+and commenced to climb into the hills again. The road climbed steeply
+going up and back and forth through chestnut woods to level finally
+along a ridge. I could look down through the woods and see, far below,
+with the sun on it, the line of the river that separated the two armies.
+We went along the rough new military road that followed the crest of the
+ridge and I looked to the north at the two ranges of mountains, green
+and dark to the snow-line and then white and lovely in the sun. Then, as
+the road mounted along the ridge, I saw a third range of mountains,
+higher snow mountains, that looked chalky white and furrowed, with
+strange planes, and then there were mountains far off beyond all these
+that you could hardly tell if you really saw. Those were all the
+Austrians’ mountains and we had nothing like them. Ahead there was a
+rounded turn-off in the road to the right and looking down I could see
+the road dropping through the trees. There were troops on this road and
+motor trucks and mules with mountain guns and as we went down, keeping
+to the side, I could see the river far down below, the line of ties and
+rails running along it, the old bridge where the railway crossed to the
+other side and across, under a hill beyond the river, the broken houses
+of the little town that was to be taken.
+
+It was nearly dark when we came down and turned onto the main road that
+ran beside the river.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IX
+
+The road was crowded and there were screens of corn-stalk and straw
+matting on both sides and matting over the top so that it was like the
+entrance at a circus or a native village. We drove slowly in this
+matting-covered tunnel and came out onto a bare cleared space where the
+railway station had been. The road here was below the level of the river
+bank and all along the side of the sunken road there were holes dug in
+the bank with infantry in them. The sun was going down and looking up
+along the bank as we drove I saw the Austrian observation balloons above
+the hills on the other side dark against the sunset. We parked the cars
+beyond a brickyard. The ovens and some deep holes had been equipped as
+dressing stations. There were three doctors that I knew. I talked with
+the major and learned that when it should start and our cars should be
+loaded we would drive them back along the screened road and up to the
+main road along the ridge where there would be a post and other cars to
+clear them. He hoped the road would not jam. It was a one-road show. The
+road was screened because it was in sight of the Austrians across the
+river. Here at the brickyard we were sheltered from rifle or machine-gun
+fire by the river bank. There was one smashed bridge across the river.
+They were going to put over another bridge when the bombardment started
+and some troops were to cross at the shallows up above at the bend of
+the river. The major was a little man with upturned mustaches. He had
+been in the war in Libya and wore two wound-stripes. He said that if the
+thing went well he would see that I was decorated. I said I hoped it
+would go well but that he was too kind. I asked him if there was a big
+dugout where the drivers could stay and he sent a soldier to show me. I
+went with him and found the dugout, which was very good. The drivers
+were pleased with it and I left them there. The major asked me to have a
+drink with him and two other officers. We drank rum and it was very
+friendly. Outside it was getting dark. I asked what time the attack was
+to be and they said as soon as it was dark. I went back to the drivers.
+They were sitting in the dugout talking and when I came in they stopped.
+I gave them each a package of cigarettes, Macedonias, loosely packed
+cigarettes that spilled tobacco and needed to have the ends twisted
+before you smoked them. Manera lit his lighter and passed it around. The
+lighter was shaped like a Fiat radiator. I told them what I had heard.
+
+“Why didn’t we see the post when we came down?” Passini asked.
+
+“It was just beyond where we turned off.”
+
+“That road will be a dirty mess,” Manera said.
+
+“They’ll shell the —— out of us.”
+
+“Probably.”
+
+“What about eating, lieutenant? We won’t get a chance to eat after this
+thing starts.”
+
+“I’ll go and see now,” I said.
+
+“You want us to stay here or can we look around?”
+
+“Better stay here.”
+
+I went back to the major’s dugout and he said the field kitchen would be
+along and the drivers could come and get their stew. He would loan them
+mess tins if they did not have them. I said I thought they had them. I
+went back and told the drivers I would get them as soon as the food
+came. Manera said he hoped it would come before the bombardment started.
+They were silent until I went out. They were all mechanics and hated the
+war.
+
+I went out to look at the cars and see what was going on and then came
+back and sat down in the dugout with the four drivers. We sat on the
+ground with our backs against the wall and smoked. Outside it was nearly
+dark. The earth of the dugout was warm and dry and I let my shoulders
+back against the wall, sitting on the small of my back, and relaxed.
+
+“Who goes to the attack?” asked Gavuzzi.
+
+“Bersaglieri.”
+
+“All bersaglieri?”
+
+“I think so.”
+
+“There aren’t enough troops here for a real attack.”
+
+“It is probably to draw attention from where the real attack will be.”
+
+“Do the men know that who attack?”
+
+“I don’t think so.”
+
+“Of course they don’t,” Manera said. “They wouldn’t attack if they did.”
+
+“Yes they would,” Passini said. “Bersaglieri are fools.”
+
+“They are brave and have good discipline,” I said.
+
+“They are big through the chest by measurement, and healthy. But they
+are still fools.”
+
+“The granatieri are tall,” Manera said. This was a joke. They all
+laughed.
+
+“Were you there, Tenente, when they wouldn’t attack and they shot every
+tenth man?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“It is true. They lined them up afterward and took every tenth man.
+Carabinieri shot them.”
+
+“Carabinieri,” said Passini and spat on the floor. “But those
+grenadiers; all over six feet. They wouldn’t attack.”
+
+“If everybody would not attack the war would be over,” Manera said.
+
+“It wasn’t that way with the granatieri. They were afraid. The officers
+all came from such good families.”
+
+“Some of the officers went alone.”
+
+“A sergeant shot two officers who would not get out.”
+
+“Some troops went out.”
+
+“Those that went out were not lined up when they took the tenth men.”
+
+“One of those shot by the carabinieri is from my town,” Passini said.
+“He was a big smart tall boy to be in the granatieri. Always in Rome.
+Always with the girls. Always with the carabinieri.” He laughed. “Now
+they have a guard outside his house with a bayonet and nobody can come
+to see his mother and father and sisters and his father loses his civil
+rights and cannot even vote. They are all without law to protect them.
+Anybody can take their property.”
+
+“If it wasn’t that that happens to their families nobody would go to the
+attack.”
+
+“Yes. Alpini would. These V. E. soldiers would. Some bersaglieri.”
+
+“Bersaglieri have run too. Now they try to forget it.”
+
+“You should not let us talk this way, Tenente. Evviva l’esercito,”
+Passini said sarcastically.
+
+“I know how you talk,” I said. “But as long as you drive the cars and
+behave——”
+
+“—and don’t talk so other officers can hear,” Manera finished.
+
+“I believe we should get the war over,” I said. “It would not finish it
+if one side stopped fighting. It would only be worse if we stopped
+fighting.”
+
+“It could not be worse,” Passini said respectfully. “There is nothing
+worse than war.”
+
+“Defeat is worse.”
+
+“I do not believe it,” Passini said still respectfully. “What is defeat?
+You go home.”
+
+“They come after you. They take your home. They take your sisters.”
+
+“I don’t believe it,” Passini said. “They can’t do that to everybody.
+Let everybody defend his home. Let them keep their sisters in the
+house.”
+
+“They hang you. They come and make you be a soldier again. Not in the
+auto-ambulance, in the infantry.”
+
+“They can’t hang every one.”
+
+“An outside nation can’t make you be a soldier,” Manera said. “At the
+first battle you all run.”
+
+“Like the Tchecos.”
+
+“I think you do not know anything about being conquered and so you think
+it is not bad.”
+
+“Tenente,” Passini said. “We understand you let us talk. Listen. There
+is nothing as bad as war. We in the auto-ambulance cannot even realize
+at all how bad it is. When people realize how bad it is they cannot do
+anything to stop it because they go crazy. There are some people who
+never realize. There are people who are afraid of their officers. It is
+with them that war is made.”
+
+“I know it is bad but we must finish it.”
+
+“It doesn’t finish. There is no finish to a war.”
+
+“Yes there is.”
+
+Passini shook his head.
+
+“War is not won by victory. What if we take San Gabriele? What if we
+take the Carso and Monfalcone and Trieste? Where are we then? Did you
+see all the far mountains to-day? Do you think we could take all them
+too? Only if the Austrians stop fighting. One side must stop fighting.
+Why don’t we stop fighting? If they come down into Italy they will get
+tired and go away. They have their own country. But no, instead there is
+a war.”
+
+“You’re an orator.”
+
+“We think. We read. We are not peasants. We are mechanics. But even the
+peasants know better than to believe in a war. Everybody hates this
+war.”
+
+“There is a class that controls a country that is stupid and does not
+realize anything and never can. That is why we have this war.”
+
+“Also they make money out of it.”
+
+“Most of them don’t,” said Passini. “They are too stupid. They do it for
+nothing. For stupidity.”
+
+“We must shut up,” said Manera. “We talk too much even for the Tenente.”
+
+“He likes it,” said Passini. “We will convert him.”
+
+“But now we will shut up,” Manera said.
+
+“Do we eat yet, Tenente?” Gavuzzi asked.
+
+“I will go and see,” I said. Gordini stood up and went outside with me.
+
+“Is there anything I can do, Tenente? Can I help in any way?” He was the
+quietest one of the four. “Come with me if you want,” I said, “and we’ll
+see.”
+
+It was dark outside and the long light from the search-lights was moving
+over the mountains. There were big search-lights on that front mounted
+on camions that you passed sometimes on the roads at night, close behind
+the lines, the camion stopped a little off the road, an officer
+directing the light and the crew scared. We crossed the brickyard, and
+stopped at the main dressing station. There was a little shelter of
+green branches outside over the entrance and in the dark the night wind
+rustled the leaves dried by the sun. Inside there was a light. The major
+was at the telephone sitting on a box. One of the medical captains said
+the attack had been put forward an hour. He offered me a glass of
+cognac. I looked at the board tables, the instruments shining in the
+light, the basins and the stoppered bottles. Gordini stood behind me.
+The major got up from the telephone.
+
+“It starts now,” he said. “It has been put back again.”
+
+I looked outside, it was dark and the Austrian search-lights were moving
+on the mountains behind us. It was quiet for a moment still, then from
+all the guns behind us the bombardment started.
+
+“Savoia,” said the major.
+
+“About the soup, major,” I said. He did not hear me. I repeated it.
+
+“It hasn’t come up.”
+
+A big shell came in and burst outside in the brickyard. Another burst
+and in the noise you could hear the smaller noise of the brick and dirt
+raining down.
+
+“What is there to eat?”
+
+“We have a little pasta asciutta,” the major said.
+
+“I’ll take what you can give me.”
+
+The major spoke to an orderly who went out of sight in the back and came
+back with a metal basin of cold cooked macaroni. I handed it to Gordini.
+
+“Have you any cheese?”
+
+The major spoke grudgingly to the orderly who ducked back into the hole
+again and came out with a quarter of a white cheese.
+
+“Thank you very much,” I said.
+
+“You’d better not go out.”
+
+Outside something was set down beside the entrance. One of the two men
+who had carried it looked in.
+
+“Bring him in,” said the major. “What’s the matter with you? Do you want
+us to come outside and get him?”
+
+The two stretcher-bearers picked up the man under the arms and by the
+legs and brought him in.
+
+“Slit the tunic,” the major said.
+
+He held a forceps with some gauze in the end. The two captains took off
+their coats. “Get out of here,” the major said to the two
+stretcher-bearers.
+
+“Come on,” I said to Gordini.
+
+“You better wait until the shelling is over,” the major said over his
+shoulder.
+
+“They want to eat,” I said.
+
+“As you wish.”
+
+Outside we ran across the brickyard. A shell burst short near the river
+bank. Then there was one that we did not hear coming until the sudden
+rush. We both went flat and with the flash and bump of the burst and the
+smell heard the singing off of the fragments and the rattle of falling
+brick. Gordini got up and ran for the dugout. I was after him, holding
+the cheese, its smooth surface covered with brick dust. Inside the
+dugout were the three drivers sitting against the wall, smoking.
+
+“Here, you patriots,” I said.
+
+“How are the cars?” Manera asked.
+
+“All right.”
+
+“Did they scare you, Tenente?”
+
+“You’re damned right,” I said.
+
+I took out my knife, opened it, wiped off the blade and pared off the
+dirty outside surface of the cheese. Gavuzzi handed me the basin of
+macaroni.
+
+“Start in to eat, Tenente.”
+
+“No,” I said. “Put it on the floor. We’ll all eat.”
+
+“There are no forks.”
+
+“What the hell,” I said in English.
+
+I cut the cheese into pieces and laid them on the macaroni.
+
+“Sit down to it,” I said. They sat down and waited. I put thumb and
+fingers into the macaroni and lifted. A mass loosened.
+
+“Lift it high, Tenente.”
+
+I lifted it to arm’s length and the strands cleared. I lowered it into
+the mouth, sucked and snapped in the ends, and chewed, then took a bite
+of cheese, chewed, and then a drink of the wine. It tasted of rusty
+metal. I handed the canteen back to Passini.
+
+“It’s rotten,” he said. “It’s been in there too long. I had it in the
+car.”
+
+They were all eating, holding their chins close over the basin, tipping
+their heads back, sucking in the ends. I took another mouthful and some
+cheese and a rinse of wine. Something landed outside that shook the
+earth.
+
+“Four hundred twenty or minnenwerfer,” Gavuzzi said.
+
+“There aren’t any four hundred twenties in the mountains,” I said.
+
+“They have big Skoda guns. I’ve seen the holes.”
+
+“Three hundred fives.”
+
+We went on eating. There was a cough, a noise like a railway engine
+starting and then an explosion that shook the earth again.
+
+“This isn’t a deep dugout,” Passini said.
+
+“That was a big trench-mortar.”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+I ate the end of my piece of cheese and took a swallow of wine. Through
+the other noise I heard a cough, then came the chuh-chuh-chuh-chuh—then
+there was a flash, as when a blast-furnace door is swung open, and a
+roar that started white and went red and on and on in a rushing wind. I
+tried to breathe but my breath would not come and I felt myself rush
+bodily out of myself and out and out and out and all the time bodily in
+the wind. I went out swiftly, all of myself, and I knew I was dead and
+that it had all been a mistake to think you just died. Then I floated,
+and instead of going on I felt myself slide back. I breathed and I was
+back. The ground was torn up and in front of my head there was a
+splintered beam of wood. In the jolt of my head I heard somebody crying.
+I thought somebody was screaming. I tried to move but I could not move.
+I heard the machine-guns and rifles firing across the river and all
+along the river. There was a great splashing and I saw the star-shells
+go up and burst and float whitely and rockets going up and heard the
+bombs, all this in a moment, and then I heard close to me some one
+saying “Mama Mia! Oh, mama Mia!” I pulled and twisted and got my legs
+loose finally and turned around and touched him. It was Passini and when
+I touched him he screamed. His legs were toward me and I saw in the dark
+and the light that they were both smashed above the knee. One leg was
+gone and the other was held by tendons and part of the trouser and the
+stump twitched and jerked as though it were not connected. He bit his
+arm and moaned, “Oh mama mia, mama Mia,” then, “Dio te salve, Maria. Dio
+te salve, Maria. Oh Jesus shoot me Christ shoot me mama mia mama Mia oh
+purest lovely Mary shoot me. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Oh Jesus lovely
+Mary stop it. Oh oh oh oh,” then choking, “Mama mama mia.” Then he was
+quiet, biting his arm, the stump of his leg twitching.
+
+“Porta feriti!” I shouted holding my hands cupped. “Porta Feriti!” I
+tried to get closer to Passini to try to put a tourniquet on the legs
+but I could not move. I tried again and my legs moved a little. I could
+pull backward along with my arms and elbows. Passini was quiet now. I
+sat beside him, undid my tunic and tried to rip the tail of my shirt. It
+would not rip and I bit the edge of the cloth to start it. Then I
+thought of his puttees. I had on wool stockings but Passini wore
+puttees. All the drivers wore puttees but Passini had only one leg. I
+unwound the puttee and while I was doing it I saw there was no need to
+try and make a tourniquet because he was dead already. I made sure he
+was dead. There were three others to locate. I sat up straight and as I
+did so something inside my head moved like the weights on a doll’s eyes
+and it hit me inside in back of my eyeballs. My legs felt warm and wet
+and my shoes were wet and warm inside. I knew that I was hit and leaned
+over and put my hand on my knee. My knee wasn’t there. My hand went in
+and my knee was down on my shin. I wiped my hand on my shirt and another
+floating light came very slowly down and I looked at my leg and was very
+afraid. Oh, God, I said, get me out of here. I knew, however, that there
+had been three others. There were four drivers. Passini was dead. That
+left three. Some one took hold of me under the arms and somebody else
+lifted my legs.
+
+“There are three others,” I said. “One is dead.”
+
+“It’s Manera. We went for a stretcher but there wasn’t any. How are you,
+Tenente?”
+
+“Where is Gordini and Gavuzzi?”
+
+“Gordini’s at the post getting bandaged. Gavuzzi has your legs. Hold on
+to my neck, Tenente. Are you badly hit?”
+
+“In the leg. How is Gordini?”
+
+“He’s all right. It was a big trench-mortar shell.”
+
+“Passini’s dead.”
+
+“Yes. He’s dead.”
+
+A shell fell close and they both dropped to the ground and dropped me.
+“I’m sorry, Tenente,” said Manera. “Hang onto my neck.”
+
+“If you drop me again.”
+
+“It was because we were scared.”
+
+“Are you unwounded?”
+
+“We are both wounded a little.”
+
+“Can Gordini drive?”
+
+“I don’t think so.”
+
+They dropped me once more before we reached the post.
+
+“You sons of bitches,” I said.
+
+“I am sorry, Tenente,” Manera said. “We won’t drop you again.”
+
+Outside the post a great many of us lay on the ground in the dark. They
+carried wounded in and brought them out. I could see the light come out
+from the dressing station when the curtain opened and they brought some
+one in or out. The dead were off to one side. The doctors were working
+with their sleeves up to their shoulders and were red as butchers. There
+were not enough stretchers. Some of the wounded were noisy but most were
+quiet. The wind blew the leaves in the bower over the door of the
+dressing station and the night was getting cold. Stretcher-bearers came
+in all the time, put their stretchers down, unloaded them and went away.
+As soon as I got to the dressing station Manera brought a medical
+sergeant out and he put bandages on both my legs. He said there was so
+much dirt blown into the wound that there had not been much hemorrhage.
+They would take me as soon as possible. He went back inside. Gordini
+could not drive, Manera said. His shoulder was smashed and his head was
+hurt. He had not felt bad but now the shoulder had stiffened. He was
+sitting up beside one of the brick walls. Manera and Gavuzzi each went
+off with a load of wounded. They could drive all right. The British had
+come with three ambulances and they had two men on each ambulance. One
+of their drivers came over to me, brought by Gordini who looked very
+white and sick. The Britisher leaned over.
+
+“Are you hit badly?” he asked. He was a tall man and wore steel-rimmed
+spectacles.
+
+“In the legs.”
+
+“It’s not serious I hope. Will you have a cigarette?”
+
+“Thanks.”
+
+“They tell me you’ve lost two drivers.”
+
+“Yes. One killed and the fellow that brought you.”
+
+“What rotten luck. Would you like us to take the cars?”
+
+“That’s what I wanted to ask you.”
+
+“We’d take quite good care of them and return them to the Villa. 206
+aren’t you?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“It’s a charming place. I’ve seen you about. They tell me you’re an
+American.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I’m English.”
+
+“No!”
+
+“Yes, English. Did you think I was Italian? There were some Italians
+with one of our units.”
+
+“It would be fine if you would take the cars,” I said.
+
+“We’ll be most careful of them,” he straightened up. “This chap of yours
+was very anxious for me to see you.” He patted Gordini on the shoulder.
+Gordini winced and smiled. The Englishman broke into voluble and perfect
+Italian. “Now everything is arranged. I’ve seen your Tenente. We will
+take over the two cars. You won’t worry now.” He broke off, “I must do
+something about getting you out of here. I’ll see the medical wallahs.
+We’ll take you back with us.”
+
+He walked across to the dressing station, stepping carefully among the
+wounded. I saw the blanket open, the light came out and he went in.
+
+“He will look after you, Tenente,” Gordini said.
+
+“How are you, Franco?”
+
+“I am all right.” He sat down beside me. In a moment the blanket in
+front of the dressing station opened and two stretcher-bearers came out
+followed by the tall Englishman. He brought them over to me.
+
+“Here is the American Tenente,” he said in Italian.
+
+“I’d rather wait,” I said. “There are much worse wounded than me. I’m
+all right.”
+
+“Come come,” he said. “Don’t be a bloody hero.” Then in Italian: “Lift
+him very carefully about the legs. His legs are very painful. He is the
+legitimate son of President Wilson.” They picked me up and took me into
+the dressing room. Inside they were operating on all the tables. The
+little major looked at us furious. He recognized me and waved a forceps.
+
+“Ça va bien?”
+
+“Ça va.”
+
+“I have brought him in,” the tall Englishman said in Italian. “The only
+son of the American Ambassador. He can be here until you are ready to
+take him. Then I will take him with my first load.” He bent over me.
+“I’ll look up their adjutant to do your papers and it will all go much
+faster.” He stooped to go under the doorway and went out. The major was
+unhooking the forceps now, dropping them in a basin. I followed his
+hands with my eyes. Now he was bandaging. Then the stretcher-bearers
+took the man off the table.
+
+“I’ll take the American Tenente,” one of the captains said. They lifted
+me onto the table. It was hard and slippery. There were many strong
+smells, chemical smells and the sweet smell of blood. They took off my
+trousers and the medical captain commenced dictating to the
+sergeant-adjutant while he worked, “Multiple superficial wounds of the
+left and right thigh and left and right knee and right foot. Profound
+wounds of right knee and foot. Lacerations of the scalp (he probed—Does
+that hurt?—Christ, yes!) with possible fracture of the skull. Incurred
+in the line of duty. That’s what keeps you from being court-martialled
+for self-inflicted wounds,” he said. “Would you like a drink of brandy?
+How did you run into this thing anyway? What were you trying to do?
+Commit suicide? Anti-tetanus please, and mark a cross on both legs.
+Thank you. I’ll clean this up a little, wash it out, and put on a
+dressing. Your blood coagulates beautifully.”
+
+The adjutant, looking up from the paper, “What inflicted the wounds?”
+
+The medical captain, “What hit you?”
+
+Me, with the eyes shut, “A trench mortar shell.”
+
+The captain, doing things that hurt sharply and severing tissue—“Are
+you sure?”
+
+Me—trying to lie still and feeling my stomach flutter when the flesh
+was cut, “I think so.”
+
+Captain doctor—(interested in something he was finding), “Fragments of
+enemy trench-mortar shell. Now I’ll probe for some of this if you like
+but it’s not necessary. I’ll paint all this and—Does that sting? Good,
+that’s nothing to how it will feel later. The pain hasn’t started yet.
+Bring him a glass of brandy. The shock dulls the pain; but this is all
+right, you have nothing to worry about if it doesn’t infect and it
+rarely does now. How is your head?”
+
+“Good Christ!” I said.
+
+“Better not drink too much brandy then. If you’ve got a fracture you
+don’t want inflammation. How does that feel?”
+
+Sweat ran all over me.
+
+“Good Christ!” I said.
+
+“I guess you’ve got a fracture all right. I’ll wrap you up and don’t
+bounce your head around.” He bandaged, his hands moving very fast and
+the bandage coming taut and sure. “All right, good luck and Vive la
+France.”
+
+“He’s an American,” one of the other captains said.
+
+“I thought you said he was a Frenchman. He talks French,” the captain
+said. “I’ve known him before. I always thought he was French.” He drank
+a half tumbler of cognac. “Bring on something serious. Get some more of
+that Anti-tetanus.” The captain waved to me. They lifted me and the
+blanket-flap went across my face as we went out. Outside the
+sergeant-adjutant knelt down beside me where I lay, “Name?” he asked
+softly. “Middle name? First name? Rank? Where born? What class? What
+corps?” and so on. “I’m sorry for your head, Tenente. I hope you feel
+better. I’m sending you now with the English ambulance.”
+
+“I’m all right,” I said. “Thank you very much.” The pain that the major
+had spoken about had started and all that was happening was without
+interest or relation. After a while the English ambulance came up and
+they put me onto a stretcher and lifted the stretcher up to the
+ambulance level and shoved it in. There was another stretcher by the
+side with a man on it whose nose I could see, waxy-looking, out of the
+bandages. He breathed very heavily. There were stretchers lifted and
+slid into the slings above. The tall English driver came around and
+looked in, “I’ll take it very easily,” he said. “I hope you’ll be
+comfy.” I felt the engine start, felt him climb up into the front seat,
+felt the brake come off and the clutch go in, then we started. I lay
+still and let the pain ride.
+
+As the ambulance climbed along the road, it was slow in the traffic,
+sometimes it stopped, sometimes it backed on a turn, then finally it
+climbed quite fast. I felt something dripping. At first it dropped
+slowly and regularly, then it pattered into a stream. I shouted to the
+driver. He stopped the car and looked in through the hole behind his
+seat.
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“The man on the stretcher over me has a hemorrhage.”
+
+“We’re not far from the top. I wouldn’t be able to get the stretcher out
+alone.” He started the car. The stream kept on. In the dark I could not
+see where it came from the canvas overhead. I tried to move sideways so
+that it did not fall on me. Where it had run down under my shirt it was
+warm and sticky. I was cold and my leg hurt so that it made me sick.
+After a while the stream from the stretcher above lessened and started
+to drip again and I heard and felt the canvas above move as the man on
+the stretcher settled more comfortably.
+
+“How is he?” the Englishman called back. “We’re almost up.”
+
+“He’s dead I think,” I said.
+
+The drops fell very slowly, as they fall from an icicle after the sun
+has gone. It was cold in the car in the night as the road climbed. At
+the post on the top they took the stretcher out and put another in and
+we went on.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X
+
+In the ward at the field hospital they told me a visitor was coming to
+see me in the afternoon. It was a hot day and there were many flies in
+the room. My orderly had cut paper into strips and tied the strips to a
+stick to make a brush that swished the flies away. I watched them settle
+on the ceiling. When he stopped swishing and fell asleep they came down
+and I blew them away and finally covered my face with my hands and slept
+too. It was very hot and when I woke my legs itched. I waked the orderly
+and he poured mineral water on the dressings. That made the bed damp and
+cool. Those of us that were awake talked across the ward. The afternoon
+was a quiet time. In the morning they came to each bed in turn, three
+men nurses and a doctor and picked you up out of bed and carried you
+into the dressing room so that the beds could be made while we were
+having our wounds dressed. It was not a pleasant trip to the dressing
+room and I did not know until later that beds could be made with men in
+them. My orderly had finished pouring water and the bed felt cool and
+lovely and I was telling him where to scratch on the soles of my feet
+against the itching when one of the doctors brought in Rinaldi. He came
+in very fast and bent down over the bed and kissed me. I saw he wore
+gloves.
+
+“How are you, baby? How do you feel? I bring you this—” It was a bottle
+of cognac. The orderly brought a chair and he sat down, “and good news.
+You will be decorated. They want to get you the medaglia d’argento but
+perhaps they can get only the bronze.”
+
+“What for?”
+
+“Because you are gravely wounded. They say if you can prove you did any
+heroic act you can get the silver. Otherwise it will be the bronze. Tell
+me exactly what happened. Did you do any heroic act?”
+
+“No,” I said. “I was blown up while we were eating cheese.”
+
+“Be serious. You must have done something heroic either before or after.
+Remember carefully.”
+
+“I did not.”
+
+“Didn’t you carry anybody on your back? Gordini says you carried several
+people on your back but the medical major at the first post declares it
+is impossible. He has to sign the proposition for the citation.”
+
+“I didn’t carry anybody. I couldn’t move.”
+
+“That doesn’t matter,” said Rinaldi.
+
+He took off his gloves.
+
+“I think we can get you the silver. Didn’t you refuse to be medically
+aided before the others?”
+
+“Not very firmly.”
+
+“That doesn’t matter. Look how you are wounded. Look at your valorous
+conduct in asking to go always to the first line. Besides, the operation
+was successful.”
+
+“Did they cross the river all right?”
+
+“Enormously. They take nearly a thousand prisoners. It’s in the
+bulletin. Didn’t you see it?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“I’ll bring it to you. It is a successful coup de main.”
+
+“How is everything?”
+
+“Splendid. We are all splendid. Everybody is proud of you. Tell me just
+exactly how it happened. I am positive you will get the silver. Go on
+tell me. Tell me all about it.” He paused and thought. “Maybe you will
+get an English medal too. There was an English there. I’ll go and see
+him and ask if he will recommend you. He ought to be able to do
+something. Do you suffer much? Have a drink. Orderly, go get a
+corkscrew. Oh you should see what I did in the removal of three metres
+of small intestine and better now than ever. It is one for _The Lancet_.
+You do me a translation and I will send it to _The Lancet_. Every day I
+am better. Poor dear baby, how do you feel? Where is that damn
+corkscrew? You are so brave and quiet I forget you are suffering.” He
+slapped his gloves on the edge of the bed.
+
+“Here is the corkscrew, Signor Tenente,” the orderly said.
+
+“Open the bottle. Bring a glass. Drink that, baby. How is your poor
+head? I looked at your papers. You haven’t any fracture. That major at
+the first post was a hog-butcher. I would take you and never hurt you. I
+never hurt anybody. I learn how to do it. Every day I learn to do things
+smoother and better. You must forgive me for talking so much, baby. I am
+very moved to see you badly wounded. There, drink that. It’s good. It
+cost fifteen lire. It ought to be good. Five stars. After I leave here
+I’ll go see that English and he’ll get you an English medal.”
+
+“They don’t give them like that.”
+
+“You are so modest. I will send the liaison officer. He can handle the
+English.”
+
+“Have you seen Miss Barkley?”
+
+“I will bring her here. I will go now and bring her here.”
+
+“Don’t go,” I said. “Tell me about Gorizia. How are the girls?”
+
+“There are no girls. For two weeks now they haven’t changed them. I
+don’t go there any more. It is disgraceful. They aren’t girls; they are
+old war comrades.”
+
+“You don’t go at all?”
+
+“I just go to see if there is anything new. I stop by. They all ask for
+you. It is a disgrace that they should stay so long that they become
+friends.”
+
+“Maybe girls don’t want to go to the front any more.”
+
+“Of course they do. They have plenty of girls. It is just bad
+administration. They are keeping them for the pleasure of dugout hiders
+in the rear.”
+
+“Poor Rinaldi,” I said. “All alone at the war with no new girls.”
+
+Rinaldi poured himself another glass of the cognac.
+
+“I don’t think it will hurt you, baby. You take it.”
+
+I drank the cognac and felt it warm all the way down. Rinaldi poured
+another glass. He was quieter now. He held up the glass. “To your
+valorous wounds. To the silver medal. Tell me, baby, when you lie here
+all the time in the hot weather don’t you get excited?”
+
+“Sometimes.”
+
+“I can’t imagine lying like that. I would go crazy.”
+
+“You are crazy.”
+
+“I wish you were back. No one to come in at night from adventures. No
+one to make fun of. No one to lend me money. No blood brother and
+roommate. Why do you get yourself wounded?”
+
+“You can make fun of the priest.”
+
+“That priest. It isn’t me that makes fun of him. It is the captain. I
+like him. If you must have a priest have that priest. He’s coming to see
+you. He makes big preparations.”
+
+“I like him.”
+
+“Oh, I knew it. Sometimes I think you and he are a little that way. You
+know.”
+
+“No, you don’t.”
+
+“Yes, I do sometimes. A little that way like the number of the first
+regiment of the Brigata Ancona.”
+
+“Oh, go to hell.”
+
+He stood up and put on his gloves.
+
+“Oh I love to tease you, baby. With your priest and your English girl,
+and really you are just like me underneath.”
+
+“No, I’m not.”
+
+“Yes, we are. You are really an Italian. All fire and smoke and nothing
+inside. You only pretend to be American. We are brothers and we love
+each other.”
+
+“Be good while I’m gone,” I said.
+
+“I will send Miss Barkley. You are better with her without me. You are
+purer and sweeter.”
+
+“Oh, go to hell.”
+
+“I will send her. Your lovely cool goddess. English goddess. My God what
+would a man do with a woman like that except worship her? What else is
+an Englishwoman good for?”
+
+“You are an ignorant foul-mouthed dago.”
+
+“A what?”
+
+“An ignorant wop.”
+
+“Wop. You are a frozen-faced ... wop.”
+
+“You are ignorant. Stupid.” I saw that word pricked him and kept on.
+“Uninformed. Inexperienced, stupid from inexperience.”
+
+“Truly? I tell you something about your good women. Your goddesses.
+There is only one difference between taking a girl who has always been
+good and a woman. With a girl it is painful. That’s all I know.” He
+slapped the bed with his glove. “And you never know if the girl will
+really like it.”
+
+“Don’t get angry.”
+
+“I’m not angry. I just tell you, baby, for your own good. To save you
+trouble.”
+
+“That’s the only difference?”
+
+“Yes. But millions of fools like you don’t know it.”
+
+“You were sweet to tell me.”
+
+“We won’t quarrel, baby. I love you too much. But don’t be a fool.”
+
+“No. I’ll be wise like you.”
+
+“Don’t be angry, baby. Laugh. Take a drink. I must go, really.”
+
+“You’re a good old boy.”
+
+“Now you see. Underneath we are the same. We are war brothers. Kiss me
+good-by.”
+
+“You’re sloppy.”
+
+“No. I am just more affectionate.”
+
+I felt his breath come toward me. “Good-by. I come to see you again
+soon.” His breath went away. “I won’t kiss you if you don’t want. I’ll
+send your English girl. Good-by, baby. The cognac is under the bed. Get
+well soon.”
+
+He was gone.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XI
+
+It was dusk when the priest came. They had brought the soup and
+afterward taken away the bowls and I was lying looking at the rows of
+beds and out the window at the tree-top that moved a little in the
+evening breeze. The breeze came in through the window and it was cooler
+with the evening. The flies were on the ceiling now and on the electric
+light bulbs that hung on wires. The lights were only turned on when some
+one was brought in at night or when something was being done. It made me
+feel very young to have the dark come after the dusk and then remain. It
+was like being put to bed after early supper. The orderly came down
+between the beds and stopped. Some one was with him. It was the priest.
+He stood there small, brown-faced, and embarrassed.
+
+“How do you do?” he asked. He put some packages down by the bed, on the
+floor.
+
+“All right, father.”
+
+He sat down in the chair that had been brought for Rinaldi and looked
+out of the window embarrassedly. I noticed his face looked very tired.
+
+“I can only stay a minute,” he said. “It is late.”
+
+“It’s not late. How is the mess?”
+
+He smiled. “I am still a great joke,” he sounded tired too. “Thank God
+they are all well.”
+
+“I am so glad you are all right,” he said. “I hope you don’t suffer.” He
+seemed very tired and I was not used to seeing him tired.
+
+“Not any more.”
+
+“I miss you at the mess.”
+
+“I wish I were there. I always enjoyed our talking.”
+
+“I brought you a few little things,” he said. He picked up the packages.
+“This is mosquito netting. This is a bottle of vermouth. You like
+vermouth? These are English papers.”
+
+“Please open them.”
+
+He was pleased and undid them. I held the mosquito netting in my hands.
+The vermouth he held up for me to see and then put it on the floor
+beside the bed. I held up one of the sheaf of English papers. I could
+read the headlines by turning it so the half-light from the window was
+on it. It was the _News of the World_.
+
+“The others are illustrated,” he said.
+
+“It will be a great happiness to read them. Where did you get them?”
+
+“I sent for them to Mestre. I will have more.”
+
+“You were very good to come, father. Will you drink a glass of
+vermouth?”
+
+“Thank you. You keep it. It’s for you.”
+
+“No, drink a glass.”
+
+“All right. I will bring you more then.”
+
+The orderly brought the glasses and opened the bottle. He broke off the
+cork and the end had to be shoved down into the bottle. I could see the
+priest was disappointed but he said, “That’s all right. It’s no matter.”
+
+“Here’s to your health, father.”
+
+“To your better health.”
+
+Afterward he held the glass in his hand and we looked at one another.
+Sometimes we talked and were good friends but to-night it was difficult.
+
+“What’s the matter, father? You seem very tired.”
+
+“I am tired but I have no right to be.”
+
+“It’s the heat.”
+
+“No. This is only the Spring. I feel very low.”
+
+“You have the war disgust.”
+
+“No. But I hate the war.”
+
+“I don’t enjoy it,” I said. He shook his head and looked out of the
+window.
+
+“You do not mind it. You do not see it. You must forgive me. I know you
+are wounded.”
+
+“That is an accident.”
+
+“Still even wounded you do not see it. I can tell. I do not see it
+myself but I feel it a little.”
+
+“When I was wounded we were talking about it. Passini was talking.”
+
+The priest put down the glass. He was thinking about something else.
+
+“I know them because I am like they are,” he said.
+
+“You are different though.”
+
+“But really I am like they are.”
+
+“The officers don’t see anything.”
+
+“Some of them do. Some are very delicate and feel worse than any of us.”
+
+“They are mostly different.”
+
+“It is not education or money. It is something else. Even if they had
+education or money men like Passini would not wish to be officers. I
+would not be an officer.”
+
+“You rank as an officer. I am an officer.”
+
+“I am not really. You are not even an Italian. You are a foreigner. But
+you are nearer the officers than you are to the men.”
+
+“What is the difference?”
+
+“I cannot say it easily. There are people who would make war. In this
+country there are many like that. There are other people who would not
+make war.”
+
+“But the first ones make them do it.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And I help them.”
+
+“You are a foreigner. You are a patriot.”
+
+“And the ones who would not make war? Can they stop it?”
+
+“I do not know.”
+
+He looked out of the window again. I watched his face.
+
+“Have they ever been able to stop it?”
+
+“They are not organized to stop things and when they get organized their
+leaders sell them out.”
+
+“Then it’s hopeless?”
+
+“It is never hopeless. But sometimes I cannot hope. I try always to hope
+but sometimes I cannot.”
+
+“Maybe the war will be over.”
+
+“I hope so.”
+
+“What will you do then?”
+
+“If it is possible I will return to the Abruzzi.”
+
+His brown face was suddenly very happy.
+
+“You love the Abruzzi!”
+
+“Yes, I love it very much.”
+
+“You ought to go there then.”
+
+“I would be too happy. If I could live there and love God and serve
+Him.”
+
+“And be respected,” I said.
+
+“Yes and be respected. Why not?”
+
+“No reason not. You should be respected.”
+
+“It does not matter. But there in my country it is understood that a man
+may love God. It is not a dirty joke.”
+
+“I understand.”
+
+He looked at me and smiled.
+
+“You understand but you do not love God.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“You do not love Him at all?” he asked.
+
+“I am afraid of him in the night sometimes.”
+
+“You should love Him.”
+
+“I don’t love much.”
+
+“Yes,” he said. “You do. What you tell me about in the nights. That is
+not love. That is only passion and lust. When you love you wish to do
+things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve.”
+
+“I don’t love.”
+
+“You will. I know you will. Then you will be happy.”
+
+“I’m happy. I’ve always been happy.”
+
+“It is another thing. You cannot know about it unless you have it.”
+
+“Well,” I said. “If I ever get it I will tell you.”
+
+“I stay too long and talk too much.” He was worried that he really did.
+
+“No. Don’t go. How about loving women? If I really loved some woman
+would it be like that?”
+
+“I don’t know about that. I never loved any woman.”
+
+“What about your mother?”
+
+“Yes, I must have loved my mother.”
+
+“Did you always love God?”
+
+“Ever since I was a little boy.”
+
+“Well,” I said. I did not know what to say. “You are a fine boy,” I
+said.
+
+“I am a boy,” he said. “But you call me father.”
+
+“That’s politeness.”
+
+He smiled.
+
+“I must go, really,” he said. “You do not want me for anything?” he
+asked hopefully.
+
+“No. Just to talk.”
+
+“I will take your greetings to the mess.”
+
+“Thank you for the many fine presents.”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“Come and see me again.”
+
+“Yes. Good-by,” he patted my hand.
+
+“So long,” I said in dialect.
+
+“Ciaou,” he repeated.
+
+It was dark in the room and the orderly, who had sat by the foot of the
+bed, got up and went out with him. I liked him very much and I hoped he
+would get back to the Abruzzi some time. He had a rotten life in the
+mess and he was fine about it but I thought how he would be in his own
+country. At Capracotta, he had told me, there were trout in the stream
+below the town. It was forbidden to play the flute at night. When the
+young men serenaded only the flute was forbidden. Why, I had asked.
+Because it was bad for the girls to hear the flute at night. The
+peasants all called you “Don” and when you met them they took off their
+hats. His father hunted every day and stopped to eat at the houses of
+peasants. They were always honored. For a foreigner to hunt he must
+present a certificate that he had never been arrested. There were bears
+on the Gran Sasso D’Italia but it was a long way. Aquila was a fine
+town. It was cool in the summer at night and the spring in Abruzzi was
+the most beautiful in Italy. But what was lovely was the fall to go
+hunting through the chestnut woods. The birds were all good because they
+fed on grapes and you never took a lunch because the peasants were
+always honored if you would eat with them at their houses. After a while
+I went to sleep.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII
+
+The room was long with windows on the right-hand side and a door at the
+far end that went into the dressing room. The row of beds that mine was
+in faced the windows and another row, under the windows, faced the wall.
+If you lay on your left side you could see the dressing room door. There
+was another door at the far end that people sometimes came in by. If any
+one were going to die they put a screen around the bed so you could not
+see them die, but only the shoes and puttees of doctors and men nurses
+showed under the bottom of the screen and sometimes at the end there
+would be whispering. Then the priest would come out from behind the
+screen and afterward the men nurses would go back behind the screen to
+come out again carrying the one who was dead with a blanket over him
+down the corridor between the beds and some one folded the screen and
+took it away.
+
+That morning the major in charge of the ward asked me if I felt that I
+could travel the next day. I said I could. He said then they would ship
+me out early in the morning. He said I would be better off making the
+trip now before it got too hot.
+
+When they lifted you up out of bed to carry you into the dressing room
+you could look out of the window and see the new graves in the garden. A
+soldier sat outside the door that opened onto the garden making crosses
+and painting on them the names, rank, and regiment of the men who were
+buried in the garden. He also ran errands for the ward and in his spare
+time made me a cigarette lighter out of an empty Austrian rifle
+cartridge. The doctors were very nice and seemed very capable. They were
+anxious to ship me to Milan where there were better X-ray facilities and
+where, after the operation, I could take mechano-therapy. I wanted to go
+to Milan too. They wanted to get us all out and back as far as possible
+because all the beds were needed for the offensive, when it should
+start.
+
+The night before I left the field hospital Rinaldi came in to see me
+with the major from our mess. They said that I would go to an American
+hospital in Milan that had just been installed. Some American ambulance
+units were to be sent down and this hospital would look after them and
+any other Americans on service in Italy. There were many in the Red
+Cross. The States had declared war on Germany but not on Austria.
+
+The Italians were sure America would declare war on Austria too and they
+were very excited about any Americans coming down, even the Red Cross.
+They asked me if I thought President Wilson would declare war on Austria
+and I said it was only a matter of days. I did not know what we had
+against Austria but it seemed logical that they should declare war on
+her if they did on Germany. They asked me if we would declare war on
+Turkey. I said that was doubtful. Turkey, I said, was our national bird
+but the joke translated so badly and they were so puzzled and suspicious
+that I said yes, we would probably declare war on Turkey. And on
+Bulgaria? We had drunk several glasses of brandy and I said yes by God
+on Bulgaria too and on Japan. But, they said, Japan is an ally of
+England. You can’t trust the bloody English. The Japanese want Hawaii, I
+said. Where is Hawaii? It is in the Pacific Ocean. Why do the Japanese
+want it? They don’t really want it, I said. That is all talk. The
+Japanese are a wonderful little people fond of dancing and light wines.
+Like the French, said the major. We will get Nice and Savoia from the
+French. We will get Corsica and all the Adriatic coast-line, Rinaldi
+said. Italy will return to the splendors of Rome, said the major. I
+don’t like Rome, I said. It is hot and full of fleas. You don’t like
+Rome? Yes, I love Rome. Rome is the mother of nations. I will never
+forget Romulus suckling the Tiber. What? Nothing. Let’s all go to Rome.
+Let’s go to Rome to-night and never come back. Rome is a beautiful city,
+said the major. The mother and father of nations, I said. Roma is
+feminine, said Rinaldi. It cannot be the father. Who is the father,
+then, the Holy Ghost? Don’t blaspheme. I wasn’t blaspheming, I was
+asking for information. You are drunk, baby. Who made me drunk? I made
+you drunk, said the major. I made you drunk because I love you and
+because America is in the war. Up to the hilt, I said. You go away in
+the morning, baby, Rinaldi said. To Rome, I said. No, to Milan. To
+Milan, said the major, to the Crystal Palace, to the Cova, to Campari’s,
+to Biffi’s, to the galleria. You lucky boy. To the Gran Italia I said,
+where I will borrow money from George. To the Scala, said Rinaldi. You
+will go to the Scala. Every night, I said. You won’t be able to afford
+it every night, said the major.
+
+The tickets are very expensive. I will draw a sight draft on my
+grandfather, I said. A what? A sight draft. He has to pay or I go to
+jail. Mr. Cunningham at the bank does it. I live by sight drafts. Can a
+grandfather jail a patriotic grandson who is dying that Italy may live?
+Live the American Garibaldi, said Rinaldi. Viva the sight drafts, I
+said. We must be quiet, said the major. Already we have been asked many
+times to be quiet. Do you go to-morrow really, Federico? He goes to the
+American hospital I tell you, Rinaldi said. To the beautiful nurses. Not
+the nurses with beards of the field hospital. Yes, yes, said the major,
+I know he goes to the American hospital. I don’t mind their beards, I
+said. If any man wants to raise a beard let him. Why don’t you raise a
+beard, Signor Maggiore? It could not go in a gas mask. Yes it could.
+Anything can go in a gas mask. I’ve vomited into a gas mask. Don’t be so
+loud, baby, Rinaldi said. We all know you have been at the front. Oh,
+you fine baby, what will I do while you are gone? We must go, said the
+major. This becomes sentimental. Listen, I have a surprise for you. Your
+English. You know? The English you go to see every night at their
+hospital? She is going to Milan too. She goes with another to be at the
+American hospital. They had not got nurses yet from America. I talked
+to-day with the head of their riparto. They have too many women here at
+the front. They send some back. How do you like that, baby? All right.
+Yes? You go to live in a big city and have your English there to cuddle
+you. Why don’t I get wounded? Maybe you will, I said. We must go, said
+the major. We drink and make noise and disturb Federico. Don’t go. Yes,
+we must go. Good-by. Good luck. Many things. Ciaou. Ciaou. Ciaou. Come
+back quickly, baby. Rinaldi kissed me. You smell of lysol. Good-by,
+baby. Good-by. Many things. The major patted my shoulder. They tiptoed
+out. I found I was quite drunk but went to sleep.
+
+
+
+The next day in the morning we left for Milan and arrived forty-eight
+hours later. It was a bad trip. We were sidetracked for a long time this
+side of Mestre and children came and peeked in. I got a little boy to go
+for a bottle of cognac but he came back and said he could only get
+grappa. I told him to get it and when it came I gave him the change and
+the man beside me and I got drunk and slept until past Vicenza where I
+woke up and was very sick on the floor. It did not matter because the
+man on that side had been very sick on the floor several times before.
+Afterward I thought I could not stand the thirst and in the yards
+outside of Verona I called to a soldier who was walking up and down
+beside the train and he got me a drink of water. I woke Georgetti, the
+other boy who was drunk, and offered him some water. He said to pour it
+on his shoulder and went back to sleep. The soldier would not take the
+penny I offered him and brought me a pulpy orange. I sucked on that and
+spit out the pith and watched the soldier pass up and down past a
+freight-car outside and after a while the train gave a jerk and started.
+
+
+
+
+                                BOOK II
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIII
+
+We got into Milan early in the morning and they unloaded us in the
+freight yard. An ambulance took me to the American hospital. Riding in
+the ambulance on a stretcher I could not tell what part of town we were
+passing through but when they unloaded the stretcher I saw a
+market-place and an open wine shop with a girl sweeping out. They were
+watering the street and it smelled of the early morning. They put the
+stretcher down and went in. The porter came out with them. He had gray
+mustaches, wore a doorman’s cap and was in his shirt sleeves. The
+stretcher would not go into the elevator and they discussed whether it
+was better to lift me off the stretcher and go up in the elevator or
+carry the stretcher up the stairs. I listened to them discussing it.
+They decided on the elevator. They lifted me from the stretcher. “Go
+easy,” I said. “Take it softly.”
+
+In the elevator we were crowded and as my legs bent the pain was very
+bad. “Straighten out the legs,” I said.
+
+“We can’t, Signor Tenente. There isn’t room.” The man who said this had
+his arm around me and my arm was around his neck. His breath came in my
+face metallic with garlic and red wine.
+
+“Be gentle,” the other man said.
+
+“Son of a bitch who isn’t gentle!”
+
+“Be gentle I say,” the man with my feet repeated.
+
+I saw the doors of the elevator closed, and the grill shut and the
+fourth-floor button pushed by the porter. The porter looked worried. The
+elevator rose slowly.
+
+“Heavy?” I asked the man with the garlic.
+
+“Nothing,” he said. His face was sweating and he grunted. The elevator
+rose steadily and stopped. The man holding the feet opened the door and
+stepped out. We were on a balcony. There were several doors with brass
+knobs. The man carrying the feet pushed a button that rang a bell. We
+heard it inside the doors. No one came. Then the porter came up the
+stairs.
+
+“Where are they?” the stretcher-bearers asked.
+
+“I don’t know,” said the porter. “They sleep down stairs.”
+
+“Get somebody.”
+
+The porter rang the bell, then knocked on the door, then he opened the
+door and went in. When he came back there was an elderly woman wearing
+glasses with him. Her hair was loose and half-falling and she wore a
+nurse’s dress.
+
+“I can’t understand,” she said. “I can’t understand Italian.”
+
+“I can speak English,” I said. “They want to put me somewhere.”
+
+“None of the rooms are ready. There isn’t any patient expected.” She
+tucked at her hair and looked at me near-sightedly.
+
+“Show them any room where they can put me.”
+
+“I don’t know,” she said. “There’s no patient expected. I couldn’t put
+you in just any room.”
+
+“Any room will do,” I said. Then to the porter in Italian, “Find an
+empty room.”
+
+“They are all empty,” said the porter. “You are the first patient.” He
+held his cap in his hand and looked at the elderly nurse.
+
+“For Christ’s sweet sake take me to some room.” The pain had gone on and
+on with the legs bent and I could feel it going in and out of the bone.
+The porter went in the door, followed by the gray-haired woman, then
+came hurrying back. “Follow me,” he said. They carried me down a long
+hallway and into a room with drawn blinds. It smelled of new furniture.
+There was a bed and a big wardrobe with a mirror. They laid me down on
+the bed.
+
+“I can’t put on sheets,” the woman said. “The sheets are locked up.”
+
+I did not speak to her. “There is money in my pocket,” I said to the
+porter. “In the buttoned-down pocket.” The porter took out the money.
+The two stretcher-bearers stood beside the bed holding their caps. “Give
+them five lire apiece and five lire for yourself. My papers are in the
+other pocket. You may give them to the nurse.”
+
+The stretcher-bearers saluted and said thank you. “Good-by,” I said.
+“And many thanks.” They saluted again and went out.
+
+“Those papers,” I said to the nurse, “describe my case and the treatment
+already given.”
+
+The woman picked them up and looked at them through her glasses. There
+were three papers and they were folded. “I don’t know what to do,” she
+said. “I can’t read Italian. I can’t do anything without the doctor’s
+orders.” She commenced to cry and put the papers in her apron pocket.
+“Are you an American?” she asked crying.
+
+“Yes. Please put the papers on the table by the bed.”
+
+It was dim and cool in the room. As I lay on the bed I could see the big
+mirror on the other side of the room but could not see what it
+reflected. The porter stood by the bed. He had a nice face and was very
+kind.
+
+“You can go,” I said to him. “You can go too,” I said to the nurse.
+“What is your name?”
+
+“Mrs. Walker.”
+
+“You can go, Mrs. Walker. I think I will go to sleep.”
+
+I was alone in the room. It was cool and did not smell like a hospital.
+The mattress was firm and comfortable and I lay without moving, hardly
+breathing, happy in feeling the pain lessen. After a while I wanted a
+drink of water and found the bell on a cord by the bed and rang it but
+nobody came. I went to sleep.
+
+When I woke I looked around. There was sunlight coming in through the
+shutters. I saw the big armoire, the bare walls, and two chairs. My legs
+in the dirty bandages, stuck straight out in the bed. I was careful not
+to move them. I was thirsty and I reached for the bell and pushed the
+button. I heard the door open and looked and it was a nurse. She looked
+young and pretty.
+
+“Good-morning,” I said.
+
+“Good-morning,” she said and came over to the bed. “We haven’t been able
+to get the doctor. He’s gone to Lake Como. No one knew there was a
+patient coming. What’s wrong with you anyway?”
+
+“I’m wounded. In the legs and feet and my head is hurt.”
+
+“What’s your name?”
+
+“Henry. Frederic Henry.”
+
+“I’ll wash you up. But we can’t do anything to the dressings until the
+doctor comes.”
+
+“Is Miss Barkley here?”
+
+“No. There’s no one by that name here.”
+
+“Who was the woman who cried when I came in?”
+
+The nurse laughed. “That’s Mrs. Walker. She was on night duty and she’d
+been asleep. She wasn’t expecting any one.”
+
+While we were talking she was undressing me, and when I was undressed,
+except for the bandages, she washed me, very gently and smoothly. The
+washing felt very good. There was a bandage on my head but she washed
+all around the edge.
+
+“Where were you wounded?”
+
+“On the Isonzo north of Plava.”
+
+“Where is that?”
+
+“North of Gorizia.”
+
+I could see that none of the places meant anything to her.
+
+“Do you have a lot of pain?”
+
+“No. Not much now.”
+
+She put a thermometer in my mouth.
+
+“The Italians put it under the arm,” I said.
+
+“Don’t talk.”
+
+When she took the thermometer out she read it and then shook it.
+
+“What’s the temperature?”
+
+“You’re not supposed to know that.”
+
+“Tell me what it is.”
+
+“It’s almost normal.”
+
+“I never have any fever. My legs are full of old iron too.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“They’re full of trench-mortar fragments, old screws and bed-springs and
+things.”
+
+She shook her head and smiled.
+
+“If you had any foreign bodies in your legs they would set up an
+inflammation and you’d have fever.”
+
+“All right,” I said. “We’ll see what comes out.”
+
+She went out of the room and came back with the old nurse of the early
+morning. Together they made the bed with me in it. That was new to me
+and an admirable proceeding.
+
+“Who is in charge here?”
+
+“Miss Van Campen.”
+
+“How many nurses are there?”
+
+“Just us two.”
+
+“Won’t there be more?”
+
+“Some more are coming.”
+
+“When will they get here?”
+
+“I don’t know. You ask a great many questions for a sick boy.”
+
+“I’m not sick,” I said, “I’m wounded.”
+
+They had finished making the bed and I lay with a clean smooth sheet
+under me and another sheet over me. Mrs. Walker went out and came back
+with a pajama jacket. They put that on me and I felt very clean and
+dressed.
+
+“You’re awfully nice to me,” I said. The nurse called Miss Gage giggled.
+“Could I have a drink of water?” I asked.
+
+“Certainly. Then you can have breakfast.”
+
+“I don’t want breakfast. Can I have the shutters opened please?”
+
+The light had been dim in the room and when the shutters were opened it
+was bright sunlight and I looked out on a balcony and beyond were the
+tile roofs of houses and chimneys. I looked out over the tiled roofs and
+saw white clouds and the sky very blue.
+
+“Don’t you know when the other nurses are coming?”
+
+“Why? Don’t we take good care of you?”
+
+“You’re very nice.”
+
+“Would you like to use the bedpan?”
+
+“I might try.”
+
+They helped me and held me up but it was not any use. Afterward I lay
+and looked out the open doors onto the balcony.
+
+“When does the doctor come?”
+
+“When he gets back. We’ve tried to telephone to Lake Como for him.”
+
+“Aren’t there any other doctors?”
+
+“He’s the doctor for the hospital.”
+
+Miss Gage brought a pitcher of water and a glass. I drank three glasses
+and then they left me and I looked out the window a while and went back
+to sleep. I ate some lunch and in the afternoon Miss Van Campen, the
+superintendent, came up to see me. She did not like me and I did not
+like her. She was small and neatly suspicious and too good for her
+position. She asked many questions and seemed to think it was somewhat
+disgraceful that I was with the Italians.
+
+“Can I have wine with the meals?” I asked her.
+
+“Only if the doctor prescribes it.”
+
+“I can’t have it until he comes?”
+
+“Absolutely not.”
+
+“You plan on having him come eventually?”
+
+“We’ve telephoned him at Lake Como.”
+
+She went out and Miss Gage came back.
+
+“Why were you rude to Miss Van Campen?” she asked after she had done
+something for me very skilfully.
+
+“I didn’t mean to be. But she was snooty.”
+
+“She said you were domineering and rude.”
+
+“I wasn’t. But what’s the idea of a hospital without a doctor?”
+
+“He’s coming. They’ve telephoned for him to Lake Como.”
+
+“What does he do there? Swim?”
+
+“No. He has a clinic there.”
+
+“Why don’t they get another doctor?”
+
+“Hush. Hush. Be a good boy and he’ll come.”
+
+I sent for the porter and when he came I told him in Italian to get me a
+bottle of Cinzano at the wine shop, a fiasco of chianti and the evening
+papers. He went away and brought them wrapped in newspaper, unwrapped
+them and, when I asked him to, drew the corks and put the wine and
+vermouth under the bed. They left me alone and I lay in bed and read the
+papers awhile, the news from the front, and the list of dead officers
+with their decorations and then reached down and brought up the bottle
+of Cinzano and held it straight up on my stomach, the cool glass against
+my stomach, and took little drinks making rings on my stomach from
+holding the bottle there between drinks, and watched it get dark outside
+over the roofs of the town. The swallows circled around and I watched
+them and the night-hawks flying above the roofs and drank the Cinzano.
+Miss Gage brought up a glass with some egg-nog in it. I lowered the
+vermouth bottle to the other side of the bed when she came in.
+
+“Miss Van Campen had some sherry put in this,” she said. “You shouldn’t
+be rude to her. She’s not young and this hospital is a big
+responsibility for her. Mrs. Walker’s too old and she’s no use to her.”
+
+“She’s a splendid woman,” I said. “Thank her very much.”
+
+“I’m going to bring your supper right away.”
+
+“That’s all right,” I said. “I’m not hungry.”
+
+When she brought the tray and put it on the bed table I thanked her and
+ate a little of the supper. Afterward it was dark outside and I could
+see the beams of the search-lights moving in the sky. I watched for a
+while and then went to sleep. I slept heavily except once I woke
+sweating and scared and then went back to sleep trying to stay outside
+of my dream. I woke for good long before it was light and heard roosters
+crowing and stayed on awake until it began to be light. I was tired and
+once it was really light I went back to sleep again.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV
+
+It was bright sunlight in the room when I woke. I thought I was back at
+the front and stretched out in bed. My legs hurt me and I looked down at
+them still in the dirty bandages, and seeing them knew where I was. I
+reached up for the bell-cord and pushed the button. I heard it buzz down
+the hall and then some one coming on rubber soles along the hall. It was
+Miss Gage and she looked a little older in the bright sunlight and not
+so pretty.
+
+“Good-morning,” she said. “Did you have a good night?”
+
+“Yes. Thanks very much,” I said. “Can I have a barber?”
+
+“I came in to see you and you were asleep with this in the bed with
+you.”
+
+She opened the armoire door and held up the vermouth bottle. It was
+nearly empty. “I put the other bottle from under the bed in there too,”
+she said. “Why didn’t you ask me for a glass?”
+
+“I thought maybe you wouldn’t let me have it.”
+
+“I’d have had some with you.”
+
+“You’re a fine girl.”
+
+“It isn’t good for you to drink alone,” she said. “You mustn’t do it.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+“Your friend Miss Barkley’s come,” she said.
+
+“Really?”
+
+“Yes. I don’t like her.”
+
+“You will like her. She’s awfully nice.”
+
+She shook her head. “I’m sure she’s fine. Can you move just a little to
+this side? That’s fine. I’ll clean you up for breakfast.” She washed me
+with a cloth and soap and warm water. “Hold your shoulder up,” she said.
+“That’s fine.”
+
+“Can I have the barber before breakfast?”
+
+“I’ll send the porter for him.” She went out and came back. “He’s gone
+for him,” she said and dipped the cloth she held in the basin of water.
+
+The barber came with the porter. He was a man of about fifty with an
+upturned mustache. Miss Gage was finished with me and went out and the
+barber lathered my face and shaved. He was very solemn and refrained
+from talking.
+
+“What’s the matter? Don’t you know any news?” I asked.
+
+“What news?”
+
+“Any news. What’s happened in the town?”
+
+“It is time of war,” he said. “The enemy’s ears are everywhere.”
+
+I looked up at him. “Please hold your face still,” he said and went on
+shaving. “I will tell nothing.”
+
+“What’s the matter with you?” I asked.
+
+“I am an Italian. I will not communicate with the enemy.”
+
+I let it go at that. If he was crazy, the sooner I could get out from
+under the razor the better. Once I tried to get a good look at him.
+“Beware,” he said. “The razor is sharp.”
+
+I paid him when it was over and tipped him half a lira. He returned the
+coins.
+
+“I will not. I am not at the front. But I am an Italian.”
+
+“Get the hell out of here.”
+
+“With your permission,” he said and wrapped his razors in newspaper. He
+went out leaving the five copper coins on the table beside the bed. I
+rang the bell. Miss Gage came in. “Would you ask the porter to come
+please?”
+
+“All right.”
+
+The porter came in. He was trying to keep from laughing.
+
+“Is that barber crazy?”
+
+“No, signorino. He made a mistake. He doesn’t understand very well and
+he thought I said you were an Austrian officer.”
+
+“Oh,” I said.
+
+“Ho ho ho,” the porter laughed. “He was funny. One move from you he said
+and he would have—” he drew his forefinger across his throat.
+
+“Ho ho ho,” he tried to keep from laughing. “When I tell him you were
+not an Austrian. Ho ho ho.”
+
+“Ho ho ho,” I said bitterly. “How funny if he would cut my throat. Ho ho
+ho.”
+
+“No, signorino. No, no. He was so frightened of an Austrian. Ho ho ho.”
+
+“Ho ho ho,” I said. “Get out of here.”
+
+He went out and I heard him laughing in the hall. I heard some one
+coming down the hallway. I looked toward the door. It was Catherine
+Barkley.
+
+She came in the room and over to the bed.
+
+“Hello, darling,” she said. She looked fresh and young and very
+beautiful. I thought I had never seen any one so beautiful.
+
+“Hello,” I said. When I saw her I was in love with her. Everything
+turned over inside of me. She looked toward the door, saw there was no
+one, then she sat on the side of the bed and leaned over and kissed me.
+I pulled her down and kissed her and felt her heart beating.
+
+“You sweet,” I said. “Weren’t you wonderful to come here?”
+
+“It wasn’t very hard. It may be hard to stay.”
+
+“You’ve got to stay,” I said. “Oh, you’re wonderful.” I was crazy about
+her. I could not believe she was really there and held her tight to me.
+
+
+
+“You mustn’t,” she said. “You’re not well enough.”
+
+“Yes, I am. Come on.”
+
+“No. You’re not strong enough.”
+
+“Yes. I am. Yes. Please.”
+
+“You do love me?”
+
+“I really love you. I’m crazy about you. Come on please.”
+
+“Feel our hearts beating.”
+
+“I don’t care about our hearts. I want you. I’m just mad about you.”
+
+“You really love me?”
+
+“Don’t keep on saying that. Come on. Please. Please, Catherine.”
+
+“All right but only for a minute.”
+
+“All right,” I said. “Shut the door.”
+
+“You can’t. You shouldn’t.”
+
+“Come on. Don’t talk. Please come on.”
+
+
+
+Catherine sat in a chair by the bed. The door was open into the hall.
+The wildness was gone and I felt finer than I had ever felt.
+
+She asked, “Now do you believe I love you?”
+
+“Oh, you’re lovely,” I said. “You’ve got to stay. They can’t send you
+away. I’m crazy in love with you.”
+
+“We’ll have to be awfully careful. That was just madness. We can’t do
+that.”
+
+“We can at night.”
+
+“We’ll have to be awfully careful. You’ll have to be careful in front of
+other people.”
+
+“I will.”
+
+“You’ll have to be. You’re sweet. You do love me, don’t you?”
+
+“Don’t say that again. You don’t know what that does to me.”
+
+“I’ll be careful then. I don’t want to do anything more to you. I have
+to go now, darling, really.”
+
+“Come back right away.”
+
+“I’ll come when I can.”
+
+“Good-by.”
+
+“Good-by, sweet.”
+
+She went out. God knows I had not wanted to fall in love with her. I had
+not wanted to fall in love with any one. But God knows I had and I lay
+on the bed in the room of the hospital in Milan and all sorts of things
+went through my head but I felt wonderful and finally Miss Gage came in.
+
+“The doctor’s coming,” she said. “He telephoned from Lake Como.”
+
+“When does he get here?”
+
+“He’ll be here this afternoon.”
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XV
+
+Nothing happened until afternoon. The doctor was a thin quiet little man
+who seemed disturbed by the war. He took out a number of small steel
+splinters from my thighs with delicate and refined distaste. He used a
+local anæsthetic called something or other “snow,” which froze the
+tissue and avoided pain until the probe, the scalpel or the forceps got
+below the frozen portion. The anæsthetized area was clearly defined by
+the patient and after a time the doctor’s fragile delicacy was exhausted
+and he said it would be better to have an X-ray. Probing was
+unsatisfactory, he said.
+
+The X-ray was taken at the Ospedale Maggiore and the doctor who did it
+was excitable, efficient and cheerful. It was arranged by holding up the
+shoulders, that the patient should see personally some of the larger
+foreign bodies through the machine. The plates were to be sent over. The
+doctor requested me to write in his pocket notebook, my name, and
+regiment and some sentiment. He declared that the foreign bodies were
+ugly, nasty, brutal. The Austrians were sons of bitches. How many had I
+killed? I had not killed any but I was anxious to please—and I said I
+had killed plenty. Miss Gage was with me and the doctor put his arm
+around her and said she was more beautiful than Cleopatra. Did she
+understand that? Cleopatra the former queen of Egypt. Yes, by God she
+was. We returned to the little hospital in the ambulance and after a
+while and much lifting I was upstairs and in bed again. The plates came
+that afternoon, the doctor had said by God he would have them that
+afternoon and he did. Catherine Barkley showed them to me. They were in
+red envelopes and she took them out of the envelopes and held them up to
+the light and we both looked.
+
+“That’s your right leg,” she said, then put the plate back in the
+envelope. “This is your left.”
+
+“Put them away,” I said, “and come over to the bed.”
+
+“I can’t,” she said. “I just brought them in for a second to show you.”
+
+She went out and I lay there. It was a hot afternoon and I was sick of
+lying in bed. I sent the porter for the papers, all the papers he could
+get.
+
+Before he came back three doctors came into the room. I have noticed
+that doctors who fail in the practice of medicine have a tendency to
+seek one another’s company and aid in consultation. A doctor who cannot
+take out your appendix properly will recommend to you a doctor who will
+be unable to remove your tonsils with success. These were three such
+doctors.
+
+“This is the young man,” said the house doctor with the delicate hands.
+
+“How do you do?” said the tall gaunt doctor with the beard. The third
+doctor, who carried the X-ray plates in their red envelopes, said
+nothing.
+
+“Remove the dressings?” questioned the bearded doctor.
+
+“Certainly. Remove the dressings, please, nurse,” the house doctor said
+to Miss Gage. Miss Gage removed the dressings. I looked down at the
+legs. At the field hospital they had the look of not too freshly ground
+hamburger steak. Now they were crusted and the knee was swollen and
+discolored and the calf sunken but there was no pus.
+
+“Very clean,” said the house doctor. “Very clean and nice.”
+
+“Um,” said the doctor with the beard. The third doctor looked over the
+house doctor’s shoulder.
+
+“Please move the knee,” said the bearded doctor.
+
+“I can’t.”
+
+“Test the articulation?” the bearded doctor questioned. He had a stripe
+beside the three stars on his sleeve. That meant he was a first captain.
+
+“Certainly,” the house doctor said. Two of them took hold of my right
+leg very gingerly and bent it.
+
+“That hurts,” I said.
+
+“Yes. Yes. A little further, doctor.”
+
+“That’s enough. That’s as far as it goes,” I said.
+
+“Partial articulation,” said the first captain. He straightened up. “May
+I see the plates again, please, doctor?” The third doctor handed him one
+of the plates. “No. The left leg, please.”
+
+“That is the left leg, doctor.”
+
+“You are right. I was looking from a different angle.” He returned the
+plate. The other plate he examined for some time. “You see, doctor?” he
+pointed to one of the foreign bodies which showed spherical and clear
+against the light. They examined the plate for some time.
+
+“Only one thing I can say,” the first captain with the beard said. “It
+is a question of time. Three months, six months probably.”
+
+“Certainly the synovial fluid must re-form.”
+
+“Certainly. It is a question of time. I could not conscientiously open a
+knee like that before the projectile was encysted.”
+
+“I agree with you, doctor.”
+
+“Six months for what?” I asked.
+
+“Six months for the projectile to encyst before the knee can be opened
+safely.”
+
+“I don’t believe it,” I said.
+
+“Do you want to keep your knee, young man?”
+
+“No,” I said.
+
+“What?”
+
+“I want it cut off,” I said, “so I can wear a hook on it.”
+
+“What do you mean? A hook?”
+
+“He is joking,” said the house doctor. He patted my shoulder very
+delicately. “He wants to keep his knee. This is a very brave young man.
+He has been proposed for the silver medal of valor.”
+
+“All my felicitations,” said the first captain. He shook my hand. “I can
+only say that to be on the safe side you should wait at least six months
+before opening such a knee. You are welcome of course to another
+opinion.”
+
+“Thank you very much,” I said. “I value your opinion.”
+
+The first captain looked at his watch.
+
+“We must go,” he said. “All my best wishes.”
+
+“All my best wishes and many thanks,” I said. I shook hands with the
+third doctor, “Capitano Varini—Tenente Enry,” and they all three went
+out of the room.
+
+“Miss Gage,” I called. She came in. “Please ask the house doctor to come
+back a minute.”
+
+He came in holding his cap and stood by the bed. “Did you wish to see
+me?”
+
+“Yes. I can’t wait six months to be operated on. My God, doctor, did you
+ever stay in bed six months?”
+
+“You won’t be in bed all the time. You must first have the wounds
+exposed to the sun. Then afterward you can be on crutches.”
+
+“For six months and then have an operation?”
+
+“That is the safe way. The foreign bodies must be allowed to encyst and
+the synovial fluid will re-form. Then it will be safe to open up the
+knee.”
+
+“Do you really think yourself I will have to wait that long?”
+
+“That is the safe way.”
+
+“Who is that first captain?”
+
+“He is a very excellent surgeon of Milan.”
+
+“He’s a first captain, isn’t he?”
+
+“Yes, but he is an excellent surgeon.”
+
+“I don’t want my leg fooled with by a first captain. If he was any good
+he would be made a major. I know what a first captain is, doctor.”
+
+“He is an excellent surgeon and I would rather have his judgment than
+any surgeon I know.”
+
+“Could another surgeon see it?”
+
+“Certainly if you wish. But I would take Dr. Varella’s opinion myself.”
+
+“Could you ask another surgeon to come and see it?”
+
+“I will ask Valentini to come.”
+
+“Who is he?”
+
+“He is a surgeon of the Ospedale Maggiore.”
+
+“Good. I appreciate it very much. You understand, doctor, I couldn’t
+stay in bed six months.”
+
+“You would not be in bed. You would first take a sun cure. Then you
+could have light exercise. Then when it was encysted we would operate.”
+
+“But I can’t wait six months.”
+
+The doctor spread his delicate fingers on the cap he held and smiled.
+“You are in such a hurry to get back to the front?”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“It is very beautiful,” he said. “You are a noble young man.” He stooped
+over and kissed me very delicately on the forehead. “I will send for
+Valentini. Do not worry and excite yourself. Be a good boy.”
+
+“Will you have a drink?” I asked.
+
+“No thank you. I never drink alcohol.”
+
+“Just have one.” I rang for the porter to bring glasses.
+
+“No. No thank you. They are waiting for me.”
+
+“Good-by,” I said.
+
+“Good-by.”
+
+
+
+Two hours later Dr. Valentini came into the room. He was in a great
+hurry and the points of his mustache stood straight up. He was a major,
+his face was tanned and he laughed all the time.
+
+“How did you do it, this rotten thing?” he asked. “Let me see the
+plates. Yes. Yes. That’s it. You look healthy as a goat. Who’s the
+pretty girl? Is she your girl? I thought so. Isn’t this a bloody war?
+How does that feel? You are a fine boy. I’ll make you better than new.
+Does that hurt? You bet it hurts. How they love to hurt you, these
+doctors. What have they done for you so far? Can’t that girl talk
+Italian? She should learn. What a lovely girl. I could teach her. I will
+be a patient here myself. No, but I will do all your maternity work
+free. Does she understand that? She will make you a fine boy. A fine
+blonde like she is. That’s fine. That’s all right. What a lovely girl.
+Ask her if she eats supper with me. No I won’t take her away from you.
+Thank you. Thank you very much, Miss. That’s all.”
+
+“That’s all I want to know.” He patted me on the shoulder. “Leave the
+dressings off.”
+
+“Will you have a drink, Dr. Valentini?”
+
+“A drink? Certainly. I will have ten drinks. Where are they?”
+
+“In the armoire. Miss Barkley will get the bottle.”
+
+“Cheery oh. Cheery oh to you, Miss. What a lovely girl. I will bring you
+better cognac than that.” He wiped his mustache.
+
+“When do you think it can be operated on?”
+
+“To-morrow morning. Not before. Your stomach must be emptied. You must
+be washed out. I will see the old lady downstairs and leave
+instructions. Good-by. I see you to-morrow. I’ll bring you better cognac
+than that. You are very comfortable here. Good-by. Until to-morrow. Get
+a good sleep. I’ll see you early.” He waved from the doorway, his
+mustaches went straight up, his brown face was smiling. There was a star
+in a box on his sleeve because he was a major.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI
+
+That night a bat flew into the room through the open door that led onto
+the balcony and through which we watched the night over the roofs of the
+town. It was dark in our room except for the small light of the night
+over the town and the bat was not frightened but hunted in the room as
+though he had been outside. We lay and watched him and I do not think he
+saw us because we lay so still. After he went out we saw a searchlight
+come on and watched the beam move across the sky and then go off and it
+was dark again. A breeze came in the night and we heard the men of the
+anti-aircraft gun on the next roof talking. It was cool and they were
+putting on their capes. I worried in the night about some one coming up
+but Catherine said they were all asleep. Once in the night we went to
+sleep and when I woke she was not there but I heard her coming along the
+hall and the door opened and she came back to the bed and said it was
+all right she had been downstairs and they were all asleep. She had been
+outside Miss Van Campen’s door and heard her breathing in her sleep. She
+brought crackers and we ate them and drank some vermouth. We were very
+hungry but she said that would all have to be gotten out of me in the
+morning. I went to sleep again in the morning when it was light and when
+I was awake I found she was gone again. She came in looking fresh and
+lovely and sat on the bed and the sun rose while I had the thermometer
+in my mouth and we smelled the dew on the roofs and then the coffee of
+the men at the gun on the next roof.
+
+“I wish we could go for a walk,” Catherine said. “I’d wheel you if we
+had a chair.”
+
+“How would I get into the chair?”
+
+“We’d do it.”
+
+“We could go out to the park and have breakfast outdoors.” I looked out
+the open doorway.
+
+“What we’ll really do,” she said, “is get you ready for your friend Dr.
+Valentini.”
+
+“I thought he was grand.”
+
+“I didn’t like him as much as you did. But I imagine he’s very good.”
+
+“Come back to bed, Catherine. Please,” I said.
+
+“I can’t. Didn’t we have a lovely night?”
+
+“And can you be on night duty to-night?”
+
+“I probably will. But you won’t want me.”
+
+“Yes, I will.”
+
+“No, you won’t. You’ve never been operated on. You don’t know how you’ll
+be.”
+
+“I’ll be all right.”
+
+“You’ll be sick and I won’t be anything to you.”
+
+“Come back then now.”
+
+“No,” she said. “I have to do the chart, darling, and fix you up.”
+
+“You don’t really love me or you’d come back again.”
+
+“You’re such a silly boy.” She kissed me. “That’s all right for the
+chart. Your temperature’s always normal. You’ve such a lovely
+temperature.”
+
+“You’ve got a lovely everything.”
+
+“Oh no. You have the lovely temperature. I’m awfully proud of your
+temperature.”
+
+“Maybe all our children will have fine temperatures.”
+
+“Our children will probably have beastly temperatures.”
+
+“What do you have to do to get me ready for Valentini?”
+
+“Not much. But quite unpleasant.”
+
+“I wish you didn’t have to do it.”
+
+“I don’t. I don’t want any one else to touch you. I’m silly. I get
+furious if they touch you.”
+
+“Even Ferguson?”
+
+“Especially Ferguson and Gage and the other, what’s her name?”
+
+“Walker?”
+
+“That’s it. They’ve too many nurses here now. There must be some more
+patients or they’ll send us away. They have four nurses now.”
+
+“Perhaps there’ll be some. They need that many nurses. It’s quite a big
+hospital.”
+
+“I hope some will come. What would I do if they sent me away? They will
+unless there are more patients.”
+
+“I’d go too.”
+
+“Don’t be silly. You can’t go yet. But get well quickly, darling, and we
+will go somewhere.”
+
+“And then what?”
+
+“Maybe the war will be over. It can’t always go on.”
+
+“I’ll get well,” I said. “Valentini will fix me.”
+
+“He should with those mustaches. And, darling, when you’re going under
+the ether just think about something else—not us. Because people get
+very blabby under an anæsthetic.”
+
+“What should I think about?”
+
+“Anything. Anything but us. Think about your people. Or even any other
+girl.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Say your prayers then. That ought to create a splendid impression.”
+
+“Maybe I won’t talk.”
+
+“That’s true. Often people don’t talk.”
+
+“I won’t talk.”
+
+“Don’t brag, darling. Please don’t brag. You’re so sweet and you don’t
+have to brag.”
+
+“I won’t talk a word.”
+
+“Now you’re bragging, darling. You know you don’t need to brag. Just
+start your prayers or poetry or something when they tell you to breathe
+deeply. You’ll be lovely that way and I’ll be so proud of you. I’m very
+proud of you anyway. You have such a lovely temperature and you sleep
+like a little boy with your arm around the pillow and think it’s me. Or
+is it some other girl? Some fine Italian girl?”
+
+“It’s you.”
+
+“Of course it’s me. Oh I do love you and Valentini will make you a fine
+leg. I’m glad I don’t have to watch it.”
+
+“And you’ll be on night duty to-night.”
+
+“Yes. But you won’t care.”
+
+“You wait and see.”
+
+“There, darling. Now you’re all clean inside and out. Tell me. How many
+people have you ever loved?”
+
+“Nobody.”
+
+“Not me even?”
+
+“Yes, you.”
+
+“How many others really?”
+
+“None.”
+
+“How many have you—how do you say it?—stayed with?”
+
+“None.”
+
+“You’re lying to me.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“It’s all right. Keep right on lying to me. That’s what I want you to
+do. Were they pretty?”
+
+“I never stayed with any one.”
+
+“That’s right. Were they very attractive?”
+
+“I don’t know anything about it.”
+
+“You’re just mine. That’s true and you’ve never belonged to any one
+else. But I don’t care if you have. I’m not afraid of them. But don’t
+tell me about them. When a man stays with a girl when does she say how
+much it costs?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“Of course not. Does she say she loves him? Tell me that. I want to know
+that.”
+
+“Yes. If he wants her to.”
+
+“Does he say he loves her? Tell me please. It’s important.”
+
+“He does if he wants to.”
+
+“But you never did? Really?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Not really. Tell me the truth?”
+
+“No,” I lied.
+
+“You wouldn’t,” she said. “I knew you wouldn’t. Oh, I love you,
+darling.”
+
+Outside the sun was up over the roofs and I could see the points of the
+cathedral with the sunlight on them. I was clean inside and outside and
+waiting for the doctor.
+
+“And that’s it?” Catherine said. “She says just what he wants her to?”
+
+“Not always.”
+
+“But I will. I’ll say just what you wish and I’ll do what you wish and
+then you will never want any other girls, will you?” She looked at me
+very happily. “I’ll do what you want and say what you want and then I’ll
+be a great success, won’t I?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“What would you like me to do now that you’re all ready?”
+
+“Come to the bed again.”
+
+“All right. I’ll come.”
+
+“Oh, darling, darling, darling,” I said.
+
+“You see,” she said. “I do anything you want.”
+
+“You’re so lovely.”
+
+“I’m afraid I’m not very good at it yet.”
+
+“You’re lovely.”
+
+“I want what you want. There isn’t any me any more. Just what you want.”
+
+“You sweet.”
+
+“I’m good. Aren’t I good? You don’t want any other girls, do you?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“You see? I’m good. I do what you want.”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVII
+
+When I was awake after the operation I had not been away. You do not go
+away. They only choke you. It is not like dying it is just a chemical
+choking so you do not feel, and afterward you might as well have been
+drunk except that when you throw up nothing comes but bile and you do
+not feel better afterward. I saw sandbags at the end of the bed. They
+were on pipes that came out of the cast. After a while I saw Miss Gage
+and she said, “How is it now?”
+
+“Better,” I said.
+
+“He did a wonderful job on your knee.”
+
+“How long did it take?”
+
+“Two hours and a half.”
+
+“Did I say anything silly?”
+
+“Not a thing. Don’t talk. Just be quiet.”
+
+I was sick and Catherine was right. It did not make any difference who
+was on night duty.
+
+
+
+There were three other patients in the hospital now, a thin boy in the
+Red Cross from Georgia with malaria, a nice boy, also thin, from New
+York, with malaria and jaundice, and a fine boy who had tried to unscrew
+the fuse-cap from a combination shrapnel and high explosive shell for a
+souvenir. This was a shrapnel shell used by the Austrians in the
+mountains with a nose-cap which went on after the burst and exploded on
+contact.
+
+Catherine Barkley was greatly liked by the nurses because she would do
+night duty indefinitely. She had quite a little work with the malaria
+people, the boy who had unscrewed the nose-cap was a friend of ours and
+never rang at night, unless it was necessary but between the times of
+working we were together. I loved her very much and she loved me. I
+slept in the daytime and we wrote notes during the day when we were
+awake and sent them by Ferguson. Ferguson was a fine girl. I never
+learned anything about her except that she had a brother in the
+Fifty-Second Division and a brother in Mesopotamia and she was very good
+to Catherine Barkley.
+
+“Will you come to our wedding, Fergy?” I said to her once.
+
+“You’ll never get married.”
+
+“We will.”
+
+“No you won’t.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“You’ll fight before you’ll marry.”
+
+“We never fight.”
+
+“You’ve time yet.”
+
+“We don’t fight.”
+
+“You’ll die then. Fight or die. That’s what people do. They don’t
+marry.”
+
+I reached for her hand. “Don’t take hold of me,” she said. “I’m not
+crying. Maybe you’ll be all right you two. But watch out you don’t get
+her in trouble. You get her in trouble and I’ll kill you.”
+
+“I won’t get her in trouble.”
+
+“Well watch out then. I hope you’ll be all right. You have a good time.”
+
+“We have a fine time.”
+
+“Don’t fight then and don’t get her into trouble.”
+
+“I won’t.”
+
+“Mind you watch out. I don’t want her with any of these war babies.”
+
+“You’re a fine girl, Fergy.”
+
+“I’m not. Don’t try to flatter me. How does your leg feel?”
+
+“Fine.”
+
+“How is your head?” She touched the top of it with her fingers. It was
+sensitive like a foot that had gone to sleep. “It’s never bothered me.”
+
+“A bump like that could make you crazy. It never bothers you?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“You’re a lucky young man. Have you the letter done? I’m going down.”
+
+“It’s here,” I said.
+
+“You ought to ask her not to do night duty for a while. She’s getting
+very tired.”
+
+“All right. I will.”
+
+“I want to do it but she won’t let me. The others are glad to let her
+have it. You might give her just a little rest.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+“Miss Van Campen spoke about you sleeping all the forenoons.”
+
+“She would.”
+
+“It would be better if you let her stay off nights a little while.”
+
+“I want her to.”
+
+“You do not. But if you would make her I’d respect you for it.”
+
+“I’ll make her.”
+
+“I don’t believe it.” She took the note and went out. I rang the bell
+and in a little while Miss Gage came in.
+
+“What’s the matter?”
+
+“I just wanted to talk to you. Don’t you think Miss Barkley ought to go
+off night duty for a while? She looks awfully tired. Why does she stay
+on so long?”
+
+Miss Gage looked at me.
+
+“I’m a friend of yours,” she said. “You don’t have to talk to me like
+that.”
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“Don’t be silly. Was that all you wanted?”
+
+“Do you want a vermouth?”
+
+“All right. Then I have to go.” She got out the bottle from the armoire
+and brought a glass.
+
+“You take the glass,” I said. “I’ll drink out of the bottle.”
+
+“Here’s to you,” said Miss Gage.
+
+“What did Van Campen say about me sleeping late in the mornings?”
+
+“She just jawed about it. She calls you our privileged patient.”
+
+“To hell with her.”
+
+“She isn’t mean,” Miss Gage said. “She’s just old and cranky. She never
+liked you.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Well, I do. And I’m your friend. Don’t forget that.”
+
+“You’re awfully damned nice.”
+
+“No. I know who you think is nice. But I’m your friend. How does your
+leg feel?”
+
+“Fine.”
+
+“I’ll bring some cold mineral water to pour over it. It must itch under
+the cast. It’s hot outside.”
+
+“You’re awful nice.”
+
+“Does it itch much?”
+
+“No. It’s fine.”
+
+“I’ll fix those sandbags better.” She leaned over. “I’m your friend.”
+
+“I know you are.”
+
+“No you don’t. But you will some day.”
+
+Catherine Barkley took three nights off night duty and then she came
+back on again. It was as though we met again after each of us had been
+away on a long journey.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII
+
+We had a lovely time that summer. When I could go out we rode in a
+carriage in the park. I remember the carriage, the horse going slowly,
+and up ahead the back of the driver with his varnished high hat, and
+Catherine Barkley sitting beside me. If we let our hands touch, just the
+side of my hand touching hers, we were excited. Afterward when I could
+get around on crutches we went to dinner at Biffi’s or the Gran Italia
+and sat at the tables outside on the floor of the galleria. The waiters
+came in and out and there were people going by and candles with shades
+on the tablecloths and after we decided that we liked the Gran Italia
+best, George, the head-waiter, saved us a table. He was a fine waiter
+and we let him order the meal while we looked at the people, and the
+great galleria in the dusk, and each other. We drank dry white capri
+iced in a bucket; although we tried many of the other wines, fresa,
+barbera and the sweet white wines. They had no wine waiter because of
+the war and George would smile ashamedly when I asked about wines like
+fresa.
+
+“If you imagine a country that makes a wine because it tastes like
+strawberries,” he said.
+
+“Why shouldn’t it?” Catherine asked. “It sounds splendid.”
+
+“You try it, lady,” said George, “if you want to. But let me bring a
+little bottle of margaux for the Tenente.”
+
+“I’ll try it too, George.”
+
+“Sir, I can’t recommend you to. It doesn’t even taste like
+strawberries.”
+
+“It might,” said Catherine. “It would be wonderful if it did.”
+
+“I’ll bring it,” said George, “and when the Lady is satisfied I’ll take
+it away.”
+
+It was not much of a wine. As he said, it did not even taste like
+strawberries. We went back to capri. One evening I was short of money
+and George loaned me a hundred lire. “That’s all right, Tenente,” he
+said. “I know how it is. I know how a man gets short. If you or the lady
+need money I’ve always got money.”
+
+After dinner we walked through the galleria, past the other restaurants
+and the shops with their steel shutters down, and stopped at the little
+place where they sold sandwiches; ham and lettuce sandwiches and anchovy
+sandwiches made of very tiny brown glazed rolls and only about as long
+as your finger. They were to eat in the night when we were hungry. Then
+we got into an open carriage outside the galleria in front of the
+cathedral and rode to the hospital. At the door of the hospital the
+porter came out to help with the crutches. I paid the driver, and then
+we rode upstairs in the elevator. Catherine got off at the lower floor
+where the nurses lived and I went on up and went down the hall on
+crutches to my room; sometimes I undressed and got into bed and
+sometimes I sat out on the balcony with my leg up on another chair and
+watched the swallows over the roofs and waited for Catherine. When she
+came upstairs it was as though she had been away on a long trip and I
+went along the hall with her on the crutches and carried the basins and
+waited outside the doors, or went in with her; it depending on whether
+they were friends of ours or not, and when she had done all there was to
+be done we sat out on the balcony outside my room. Afterward I went to
+bed and when they were all asleep and she was sure they would not call
+she came in. I loved to take her hair down and she sat on the bed and
+kept very still, except suddenly she would dip down to kiss me while I
+was doing it, and I would take out the pins and lay them on the sheet
+and it would be loose and I would watch her while she kept very still
+and then take out the last two pins and it would all come down and she
+would drop her head and we would both be inside of it, and it was the
+feeling of inside a tent or behind a falls.
+
+She had wonderfully beautiful hair and I would lie sometimes and watch
+her twisting it up in the light that came in the open door and it shone
+even in the night as water shines sometimes just before it is really
+daylight. She had a lovely face and body and lovely smooth skin too. We
+would be lying together and I would touch her cheeks and her forehead
+and under her eyes and her chin and throat with the tips of my fingers
+and say, “Smooth as piano keys,” and she would stroke my chin with her
+finger and say, “Smooth as emery paper and very hard on piano keys.”
+
+“Is it rough?”
+
+“No, darling. I was just making fun of you.”
+
+It was lovely in the nights and if we could only touch each other we
+were happy. Besides all the big times we had many small ways of making
+love and we tried putting thoughts in the other one’s head while we were
+in different rooms. It seemed to work sometimes but that was probably
+because we were thinking the same thing anyway.
+
+We said to each other that we were married the first day she had come to
+the hospital and we counted months from our wedding day. I wanted to be
+really married but Catherine said that if we were they would send her
+away and if we merely started on the formalities they would watch her
+and would break us up. We would have to be married under Italian law and
+the formalities were terrific. I wanted us to be married really because
+I worried about having a child if I thought about it, but we pretended
+to ourselves we were married and did not worry much and I suppose I
+enjoyed not being married, really. I know one night we talked about it
+and Catherine said, “But, darling, they’d send me away.”
+
+“Maybe they wouldn’t.”
+
+“They would. They’d send me home and then we would be apart until after
+the war.”
+
+“I’d come on leave.”
+
+“You couldn’t get to Scotland and back on a leave. Besides, I won’t
+leave you. What good would it do to marry now? We’re really married. I
+couldn’t be any more married.”
+
+“I only wanted to for you.”
+
+“There isn’t any me. I’m you. Don’t make up a separate me.”
+
+“I thought girls always wanted to be married.”
+
+“They do. But, darling, I am married. I’m married to you. Don’t I make
+you a good wife?”
+
+“You’re a lovely wife.”
+
+“You see, darling, I had one experience of waiting to be married.”
+
+“I don’t want to hear about it.”
+
+“You know I don’t love any one but you. You shouldn’t mind because some
+one else loved me.”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“You shouldn’t be jealous of some one who’s dead when you have
+everything.”
+
+“No, but I don’t want to hear about it.”
+
+“Poor darling. And I know you’ve been with all kinds of girls and it
+doesn’t matter to me.”
+
+“Couldn’t we be married privately some way? Then if anything happened to
+me or if you had a child.”
+
+“There’s no way to be married except by church or state. We are married
+privately. You see, darling, it would mean everything to me if I had any
+religion. But I haven’t any religion.”
+
+“You gave me the Saint Anthony.”
+
+“That was for luck. Some one gave it to me.”
+
+“Then nothing worries you?”
+
+“Only being sent away from you. You’re my religion. You’re all I’ve
+got.”
+
+“All right. But I’ll marry you the day you say.”
+
+“Don’t talk as though you had to make an honest woman of me, darling.
+I’m a very honest woman. You can’t be ashamed of something if you’re
+only happy and proud of it. Aren’t you happy?”
+
+“But you won’t ever leave me for some one else.”
+
+“No, darling. I won’t ever leave you for some one else. I suppose all
+sorts of dreadful things will happen to us. But you don’t have to worry
+about that.”
+
+“I don’t. But I love you so much and you did love some one else before.”
+
+“And what happened to him?”
+
+“He died.”
+
+“Yes and if he hadn’t I wouldn’t have met you. I’m not unfaithful,
+darling. I’ve plenty of faults but I’m very faithful. You’ll be sick of
+me I’ll be so faithful.”
+
+“I’ll have to go back to the front pretty soon.”
+
+“We won’t think about that until you go. You see I’m happy, darling, and
+we have a lovely time. I haven’t been happy for a long time and when I
+met you perhaps I was nearly crazy. Perhaps I was crazy. But now we’re
+happy and we love each other. Do let’s please just be happy. You are
+happy, aren’t you? Is there anything I do you don’t like? Can I do
+anything to please you? Would you like me to take down my hair? Do you
+want to play?”
+
+“Yes and come to bed.”
+
+“All right. I’ll go and see the patients first.”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX
+
+The summer went that way. I do not remember much about the days, except
+that they were hot and that there were many victories in the papers. I
+was very healthy and my legs healed quickly so that it was not very long
+after I was first on crutches before I was through with them and walking
+with a cane. Then I started treatments at the Ospedale Maggiore for
+bending the knees, mechanical treatments, baking in a box of mirrors
+with violet rays, massage, and baths. I went over there afternoons and
+afterward stopped at the café and had a drink and read the papers. I did
+not roam around the town; but wanted to get home to the hospital from
+the café. All I wanted was to see Catherine. The rest of the time I was
+glad to kill. Mostly I slept in the mornings, and in the afternoons,
+sometimes, I went to the races, and late to the mechano-therapy
+treatments. Sometimes I stopped in at the Anglo-American Club and sat in
+a deep leather-cushioned chair in front of the window and read the
+magazines. They would not let us go out together when I was off crutches
+because it was unseemly for a nurse to be seen unchaperoned with a
+patient who did not look as though he needed attendance, so we were not
+together much in the afternoons. Although sometimes we could go out to
+dinner if Ferguson went along. Miss Van Campen had accepted the status
+that we were great friends because she got a great amount of work out of
+Catherine. She thought Catherine came from very good people and that
+prejudiced her in her favor finally. Miss Van Campen admired family very
+much and came from an excellent family herself. The hospital was quite
+busy, too, and that kept her occupied. It was a hot summer and I knew
+many people in Milan but always was anxious to get back home to the
+hospital as soon as the afternoon was over. At the front they were
+advancing on the Carso, they had taken Kuk across from Plava and were
+taking the Bainsizza plateau. The West front did not sound so good. It
+looked as though the war were going on for a long time. We were in the
+war now but I thought it would take a year to get any great amount of
+troops over and train them for combat. Next year would be a bad year, or
+a good year maybe. The Italians were using up an awful amount of men. I
+did not see how it could go on. Even if they took all the Bainsizza and
+Monte San Gabriele there were plenty of mountains beyond for the
+Austrians. I had seen them. All the highest mountains were beyond. On
+the Carso they were going forward but there were marshes and swamps down
+by the sea. Napoleon would have whipped the Austrians on the plains. He
+never would have fought them in the mountains. He would have let them
+come down and whipped them around Verona. Still nobody was whipping any
+one on the Western front. Perhaps wars weren’t won any more. Maybe they
+went on forever. Maybe it was another Hundred Years’ War. I put the
+paper back on the rack and left the club. I went down the steps
+carefully and walked up the Via Manzoni. Outside the Gran Hotel I met
+old Meyers and his wife getting out of a carriage. They were coming back
+from the races. She was a big-busted woman in black satin. He was short
+and old, with a white mustache and walked flat-footed with a cane.
+
+“How do you do? How do you do?” She shook hands. “Hello,” said Meyers.
+
+“How were the races?”
+
+“Fine. They were just lovely. I had three winners.”
+
+“How did you do?” I asked Meyers.
+
+“All right. I had a winner.”
+
+“I never know how he does,” Mrs. Meyers said. “He never tells me.”
+
+“I do all right,” Meyers said. He was being cordial. “You ought to come
+out.” While he talked you had the impression that he was not looking at
+you or that he mistook you for some one else.
+
+“I will,” I said.
+
+“I’m coming up to the hospital to see you,” Mrs. Meyers said. “I have
+some things for my boys. You’re all my boys. You certainly are my dear
+boys.”
+
+“They’ll be glad to see you.”
+
+“Those dear boys. You too. You’re one of my boys.”
+
+“I have to get back,” I said.
+
+“You give my love to all those dear boys. I’ve got lots of things to
+bring. I’ve some fine Marsala and cakes.”
+
+“Good-by,” I said. “They’ll be awfully glad to see you.”
+
+“Good-by,” said Meyers. “You come around to the galleria. You know where
+my table is. We’re all there every afternoon.” I went on up the street.
+I wanted to buy something at the Cova to take to Catherine. Inside, at
+the Cova, I bought a box of chocolate and while the girl wrapped it up I
+walked over to the bar. There were a couple of British and some
+aviators. I had a martini alone, paid for it, picked up the box of
+chocolate at the outside counter and walked on home toward the hospital.
+Outside the little bar up the street from the Scala there were some
+people I knew, a vice-consul, two fellows who studied singing, and
+Ettore Moretti, an Italian from San Francisco who was in the Italian
+army. I had a drink with them. One of the singers was named Ralph
+Simmons, and he was singing under the name of Enrico DelCredo. I never
+knew how well he could sing but he was always on the point of something
+very big happening. He was fat and looked shopworn around the nose and
+mouth as though he had hayfever. He had come back from singing in
+Piacenza. He had sung Tosca and it had been wonderful.
+
+“Of course you’ve never heard me sing,” he said.
+
+“When will you sing here?”
+
+“I’ll be at the Scala in the fall.”
+
+“I’ll bet they throw the benches at you,” Ettore said. “Did you hear how
+they threw the benches at him in Modena?”
+
+“It’s a damned lie.”
+
+“They threw the benches at him,” Ettore said. “I was there. I threw six
+benches myself.”
+
+“You’re just a wop from Frisco.”
+
+“He can’t pronounce Italian,” Ettore said. “Everywhere he goes they
+throw the benches at him.”
+
+“Piacenza’s the toughest house to sing in the north of Italy,” the other
+tenor said. “Believe me that’s a tough little house to sing.” This
+tenor’s name was Edgar Saunders, and he sang under the name of Edouardo
+Giovanni.
+
+“I’d like to be there to see them throw the benches at you,” Ettore
+said. “You can’t sing Italian.”
+
+“He’s a nut,” said Edgar Saunders. “All he knows how to say is throw
+benches.”
+
+“That’s all they know how to do when you two sing,” Ettore said. “Then
+when you go to America you’ll tell about your triumphs at the Scala.
+They wouldn’t let you get by the first note at the Scala.”
+
+“I’ll sing at the Scala,” Simmons said. “I’m going to sing Tosca in
+October.”
+
+“We’ll go, won’t we, Mac?” Ettore said to the vice-consul. “They’ll need
+somebody to protect them.”
+
+“Maybe the American army will be there to protect them,” the vice-consul
+said. “Do you want another drink, Simmons? You want a drink, Saunders?”
+
+“All right,” said Saunders.
+
+“I hear you’re going to get the silver medal,” Ettore said to me. “What
+kind of citation you going to get?”
+
+“I don’t know. I don’t know I’m going to get it.”
+
+“You’re going to get it. Oh boy, the girls at the Cova will think you’re
+fine then. They’ll all think you killed two hundred Austrians or
+captured a whole trench by yourself. Believe me, I got to work for my
+decorations.”
+
+“How many have you got, Ettore?” asked the vice-consul.
+
+“He’s got everything,” Simmons said. “He’s the boy they’re running the
+war for.”
+
+“I’ve got the bronze twice and three silver medals,” said Ettore. “But
+the papers on only one have come through.”
+
+“What’s the matter with the others?” asked Simmons.
+
+“The action wasn’t successful,” said Ettore. “When the action isn’t
+successful they hold up all the medals.”
+
+“How many times have you been wounded, Ettore?”
+
+“Three times bad. I got three wound stripes. See?” He pulled his sleeve
+around. The stripes were parallel silver lines on a black background
+sewed to the cloth of the sleeve about eight inches below the shoulder.
+
+“You got one too,” Ettore said to me. “Believe me they’re fine to have.
+I’d rather have them than medals. Believe me, boy, when you get three
+you’ve got something. You only get one for a wound that puts you three
+months in the hospital.”
+
+“Where were you wounded, Ettore?” asked the vice-consul.
+
+Ettore pulled up his sleeve. “Here,” he showed the deep smooth red scar.
+“Here on my leg. I can’t show you that because I got puttees on; and in
+the foot. There’s dead bone in my foot that stinks right now. Every
+morning I take new little pieces out and it stinks all the time.”
+
+“What hit you?” asked Simmons.
+
+“A hand-grenade. One of those potato mashers. It just blew the whole
+side of my foot off. You know those potato mashers?” He turned to me.
+
+“Sure.”
+
+“I saw the son of a bitch throw it,” Ettore said. “It knocked me down
+and I thought I was dead all right but those damn potato mashers haven’t
+got anything in them. I shot the son of a bitch with my rifle. I always
+carry a rifle so they can’t tell I’m an officer.”
+
+“How did he look?” asked Simmons.
+
+“That was the only one he had,” Ettore said. “I don’t know why he threw
+it. I guess he always wanted to throw one. He never saw any real
+fighting probably. I shot the son of a bitch all right.”
+
+“How did he look when you shot him?” Simmons asked.
+
+“Hell, how should I know,” said Ettore. “I shot him in the belly. I was
+afraid I’d miss him if I shot him in the head.”
+
+“How long have you been an officer, Ettore?” I asked.
+
+“Two years. I’m going to be a captain. How long have you been a
+lieutenant?”
+
+“Going on three years.”
+
+“You can’t be a captain because you don’t know the Italian language well
+enough,” Ettore said. “You can talk but you can’t read and write well
+enough. You got to have an education to be a captain. Why don’t you go
+in the American army?”
+
+“Maybe I will.”
+
+“I wish to God I could. Oh, boy, how much does a captain get, Mac?”
+
+“I don’t know exactly. Around two hundred and fifty dollars, I think.”
+
+“Jesus Christ what I could do with two hundred and fifty dollars. You
+better get in the American army quick, Fred. See if you can’t get me
+in.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+“I can command a company in Italian. I could learn it in English easy.”
+
+“You’d be a general,” said Simmons.
+
+“No, I don’t know enough to be a general. A general’s got to know a hell
+of a lot. You guys think there ain’t anything to war. You ain’t got
+brains enough to be a second-class corporal.”
+
+“Thank God I don’t have to be,” Simmons said.
+
+“Maybe you will if they round up all you slackers. Oh, boy, I’d like to
+have you two in my platoon. Mac too. I’d make you my orderly, Mac.”
+
+“You’re a great boy, Ettore,” Mac said. “But I’m afraid you’re a
+militarist.”
+
+“I’ll be a colonel before the war’s over,” Ettore said.
+
+“If they don’t kill you.”
+
+“They won’t kill me.” He touched the stars at his collar with his thumb
+and forefinger. “See me do that? We always touch our stars if anybody
+mentions getting killed.”
+
+“Let’s go, Sim,” said Saunders standing up.
+
+“All right.”
+
+“So long,” I said. “I have to go too.” It was a quarter to six by the
+clock inside the bar. “Ciaou, Ettore.”
+
+“Ciaou, Fred,” said Ettore. “That’s pretty fine you’re going to get the
+silver medal.”
+
+“I don’t know I’ll get it.”
+
+“You’ll get it all right, Fred. I heard you were going to get it all
+right.”
+
+“Well, so long,” I said. “Keep out of trouble, Ettore.”
+
+“Don’t worry about me. I don’t drink and I don’t run around. I’m no
+boozer and whorehound. I know what’s good for me.”
+
+“So long,” I said. “I’m glad you’re going to be promoted captain.”
+
+“I don’t have to wait to be promoted. I’m going to be a captain for
+merit of war. You know. Three stars with the crossed swords and crown
+above. That’s me.”
+
+“Good luck.”
+
+“Good luck. When you going back to the front?”
+
+“Pretty soon.”
+
+“Well, I’ll see you around.”
+
+“So long.”
+
+“So long. Don’t take any bad nickels.”
+
+I walked on down a back street that led to a cross-cut to the hospital.
+Ettore was twenty-three. He had been brought up by an uncle in San
+Francisco and was visiting his father and mother in Torino when war was
+declared. He had a sister, who had been sent to America with him at the
+same time to live with the uncle, who would graduate from normal school
+this year. He was a legitimate hero who bored every one he met.
+Catherine could not stand him.
+
+“We have heroes too,” she said. “But usually, darling, they’re much
+quieter.”
+
+“I don’t mind him.”
+
+“I wouldn’t mind him if he wasn’t so conceited and didn’t bore me, and
+bore me, and bore me.”
+
+“He bores me.”
+
+“You’re sweet to say so, darling. But you don’t need to. You can picture
+him at the front and you know he’s useful but he’s so much the type of
+boy I don’t care for.”
+
+“I know.”
+
+“You’re awfully sweet to know, and I try and like him but he’s a
+dreadful, dreadful boy really.”
+
+“He said this afternoon he was going to be a captain.”
+
+“I’m glad,” said Catherine. “That should please him.”
+
+“Wouldn’t you like me to have some more exalted rank?”
+
+“No, darling. I only want you to have enough rank so that we’re admitted
+to the better restaurants.”
+
+“That’s just the rank I have.”
+
+“You have a splendid rank. I don’t want you to have any more rank. It
+might go to your head. Oh, darling, I’m awfully glad you’re not
+conceited. I’d have married you even if you were conceited but it’s very
+restful to have a husband who’s not conceited.”
+
+We were talking softly out on the balcony. The moon was supposed to rise
+but there was a mist over the town and it did not come up and in a
+little while it started to drizzle and we came in. Outside the mist
+turned to rain and in a little while it was raining hard and we heard it
+drumming on the roof. I got up and stood at the door to see if it was
+raining in but it wasn’t, so I left the door open.
+
+“Who else did you see?” Catherine asked.
+
+“Mr. and Mrs. Meyers.”
+
+“They’re a strange lot.”
+
+“He’s supposed to have been in the penitentiary at home. They let him
+out to die.”
+
+“And he lived happily in Milan forever after.”
+
+“I don’t know how happily.”
+
+“Happily enough after jail I should think.”
+
+“She’s bringing some things here.”
+
+“She brings splendid things. Were you her dear boy?”
+
+“One of them.”
+
+“You are all her dear boys,” Catherine said. “She prefers the dear boys.
+Listen to it rain.”
+
+“It’s raining hard.”
+
+“And you’ll always love me, won’t you?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And the rain won’t make any difference?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“That’s good. Because I’m afraid of the rain.”
+
+“Why?” I was sleepy. Outside the rain was falling steadily.
+
+“I don’t know, darling. I’ve always been afraid of the rain.”
+
+“I like it.”
+
+“I like to walk in it. But it’s very hard on loving.”
+
+“I’ll love you always.”
+
+“I’ll love you in the rain and in the snow and in the hail and—what
+else is there?”
+
+“I don’t know. I guess I’m sleepy.”
+
+“Go to sleep, darling, and I’ll love you no matter how it is.”
+
+“You’re not really afraid of the rain are you?”
+
+“Not when I’m with you.”
+
+“Why are you afraid of it?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“Tell me.”
+
+“Don’t make me.”
+
+“Tell me.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Tell me.”
+
+“All right. I’m afraid of the rain because sometimes I see me dead in
+it.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“And sometimes I see you dead in it.”
+
+“That’s more likely.”
+
+“No it’s not, darling. Because I can keep you safe. I know I can. But
+nobody can help themselves.”
+
+“Please stop it. I don’t want you to get Scotch and crazy to-night. We
+won’t be together much longer.”
+
+“No, but I am Scotch and crazy. But I’ll stop it. It’s all nonsense.”
+
+“Yes it’s all nonsense.”
+
+“It’s all nonsense. It’s only nonsense. I’m not afraid of the rain. I’m
+not afraid of the rain. Oh, oh, God, I wish I wasn’t.” She was crying. I
+comforted her and she stopped crying. But outside it kept on raining.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XX
+
+One day in the afternoon we went to the races. Ferguson went too and
+Crowell Rodgers, the boy who had been wounded in the eyes by the
+explosion of the shell nose-cap. The girls dressed to go after lunch
+while Crowell and I sat on the bed in his room and read the past
+performances of the horses and the predictions in the racing paper.
+Crowell’s head was bandaged and he did not care much about these races
+but read the racing paper constantly and kept track of all the horses
+for something to do. He said the horses were a terrible lot but they
+were all the horses we had. Old Meyers liked him and gave him tips.
+Meyers won on nearly every race but disliked to give tips because it
+brought down the prices. The racing was very crooked. Men who had been
+ruled off the turf everywhere else were racing in Italy. Meyers’
+information was good but I hated to ask him because sometimes he did not
+answer, and always you could see it hurt him to tell you, but he felt
+obligated to tell us for some reason and he hated less to tell Crowell.
+Crowell’s eyes had been hurt, one was hurt badly, and Meyers had trouble
+with his eyes and so he liked Crowell. Meyers never told his wife what
+horses he was playing and she won or lost, mostly lost, and talked all
+the time.
+
+We four drove out to San Siro in an open carriage. It was a lovely day
+and we drove out through the park and out along the tramway and out of
+town where the road was dusty. There were villas with iron fences and
+big overgrown gardens and ditches with water flowing and green vegetable
+gardens with dust on the leaves. We could look across the plain and see
+farmhouses and the rich green farms with their irrigation ditches and
+the mountains to the north. There were many carriages going into the
+race track and the men at the gate let us in without cards because we
+were in uniform. We left the carriage, bought programmes, and walked
+across the infield and then across the smooth thick turf of the course
+to the paddock. The grand stands were old and made of wood and the
+betting booths were under the stands and in a row out near the stables.
+There was a crowd of soldiers along the fence in the infield. The
+paddock was fairly well filled with people and they were walking the
+horses around in a ring under the trees behind the grand-stand. We saw
+people we knew and got chairs for Ferguson and Catherine and watched the
+horses.
+
+They went around, one after the other, their heads down, the grooms
+leading them. One horse, a purplish black, Crowell swore was dyed that
+color. We watched him and it seemed possible. He had only come out just
+before the bell rang to saddle. We looked him up in the programme from
+the number on the groom’s arm and it was listed a black gelding named
+Japalac. The race was for horses that had never won a race worth one
+thousand lire or more. Catherine was sure his color had been changed.
+Ferguson said she could not tell. I thought he looked suspicious. We all
+agreed we ought to back him and pooled one hundred lire. The odds sheets
+showed he would pay thirty-five to one. Crowell went over and bought the
+tickets while we watched the jockeys ride around once more and then go
+out under the trees to the track and gallop slowly up to the turn where
+the start was to be.
+
+We went up in the grand-stand to watch the race. They had no elastic
+barrier at San Siro then and the starter lined up all the horses, they
+looked very small way up the track, and then sent them off with a crack
+of his long whip. They came past us with the black horse well in front
+and on the turn he was running away from the others. I watched them on
+the far side with the glasses and saw the jockey fighting to hold him in
+but he could not hold him and when they came around the turn and into
+the stretch the black horse was fifteen lengths ahead of the others. He
+went way on up and around the turn after the finish.
+
+“Isn’t it wonderful,” Catherine said. “We’ll have over three thousand
+lire. He must be a splendid horse.”
+
+“I hope his color doesn’t run,” Crowell said, “before they pay off.”
+
+“He was really a lovely horse,” Catherine said. “I wonder if Mr. Meyers
+backed him.”
+
+“Did you have the winner?” I called to Meyers. He nodded.
+
+“I didn’t,” Mrs. Meyers said. “Who did you children bet on?”
+
+“Japalac.”
+
+“Really? He’s thirty-five to one!”
+
+“We liked his color.”
+
+“I didn’t. I thought he looked seedy. They told me not to back him.”
+
+“He won’t pay much,” Meyers said.
+
+“He’s marked thirty-five to one in the quotes,” I said.
+
+“He won’t pay much. At the last minute,” Meyers said, “they put a lot of
+money on him.”
+
+“Who?”
+
+“Kempton and the boys. You’ll see. He won’t pay two to one.”
+
+“Then we won’t get three thousand lire,” Catherine said. “I don’t like
+this crooked racing!”
+
+“We’ll get two hundred lire.”
+
+“That’s nothing. That doesn’t do us any good. I thought we were going to
+get three thousand.”
+
+“It’s crooked and disgusting,” Ferguson said.
+
+“Of course,” said Catherine, “if it hadn’t been crooked we’d never have
+backed him at all. But I would have liked the three thousand lire.”
+
+“Let’s go down and get a drink and see what they pay,” Crowell said. We
+went out to where they posted the numbers and the bell rang to pay off
+and they put up 18.50 after Japalac to win. That meant he paid less than
+even money on a ten-lira bet.
+
+We went to the bar under the grand stand and had a whiskey and soda
+apiece. We ran into a couple of Italians we knew and McAdams, the
+vice-consul, and they came up with us when we joined the girls. The
+Italians were full of manners and McAdams talked to Catherine while we
+went down to bet again. Mr. Meyers was standing near the pari-mutual.
+
+“Ask him what he played,” I said to Crowell.
+
+“What are you on, Mr. Meyers?” Crowell asked. Meyers took out his
+programme and pointed to the number five with his pencil.
+
+“Do you mind if we play him too?” Crowell asked.
+
+“Go ahead. Go ahead. But don’t tell my wife I gave it to you.”
+
+“Will you have a drink?” I asked.
+
+“No thanks. I never drink.”
+
+We put a hundred lire on number five to win and a hundred to place and
+then had another whiskey and soda apiece. I was feeling very good and we
+picked up a couple more Italians, who each had a drink with us, and went
+back to the girls. These Italians were also very mannered and matched
+manners with the two we had collected before. In a little while no one
+could sit down. I gave the tickets to Catherine.
+
+“What horse is it?”
+
+“I don’t know. Mr. Meyers’ choice.”
+
+“Don’t you even know the name?”
+
+“No. You can find it on the programme. Number five I think.”
+
+“You have touching faith,” she said. The number five won but did not pay
+anything. Mr. Meyers was angry.
+
+“You have to put up two hundred lire to make twenty,” he said. “Twelve
+lire for ten. It’s not worth it. My wife lost twenty lire.”
+
+“I’ll go down with you,” Catherine said to me. The Italians all stood
+up. We went downstairs and out to the paddock.
+
+“Do you like this?” Catherine asked.
+
+“Yes. I guess I do.”
+
+“It’s all right, I suppose,” she said. “But, darling, I can’t stand to
+see so many people.”
+
+“We don’t see many.”
+
+“No. But those Meyers and the man from the bank with his wife and
+daughters——”
+
+“He cashes my sight drafts,” I said.
+
+“Yes but some one else would if he didn’t. Those last four boys were
+awful.”
+
+“We can stay out here and watch the race from the fence.”
+
+“That will be lovely. And, darling, let’s back a horse we’ve never heard
+of and that Mr. Meyers won’t be backing.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+We backed a horse named Light For Me that finished fourth in a field of
+five. We leaned on the fence and watched the horses go by, their hoofs
+thudding as they went past, and saw the mountains off in the distance
+and Milan beyond the trees and the fields.
+
+“I feel so much cleaner,” Catherine said. The horses were coming back,
+through the gate, wet and sweating, the jockeys quieting them and riding
+up to dismount under the trees.
+
+“Wouldn’t you like a drink? We could have one out here and see the
+horses.”
+
+“I’ll get them,” I said.
+
+“The boy will bring them,” Catherine said. She put her hand up and the
+boy came out from the Pagoda bar beside the stables. We sat down at a
+round iron table.
+
+“Don’t you like it better when we’re alone?”
+
+“Yes,” I said.
+
+“I felt very lonely when they were all there.”
+
+“It’s grand here,” I said.
+
+“Yes. It’s really a pretty course.”
+
+“It’s nice.”
+
+“Don’t let me spoil your fun, darling. I’ll go back whenever you want.”
+
+“No,” I said. “We’ll stay here and have our drink. Then we’ll go down
+and stand at the water jump for the steeplechase.”
+
+“You’re awfully good to me,” she said.
+
+After we had been alone awhile we were glad to see the others again. We
+had a good time.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXI
+
+In September the first cool nights came, then the days were cool and the
+leaves on the trees in the park began to turn color and we knew the
+summer was gone. The fighting at the front went very badly and they
+could not take San Gabriele. The fighting on the Bainsizza plateau was
+over and by the middle of the month the fighting for San Gabriele was
+about over too. They could not take it. Ettore was gone back to the
+front. The horses were gone to Rome and there was no more racing.
+Crowell had gone to Rome too, to be sent back to America. There were
+riots twice in the town against the war and bad rioting in Turin. A
+British major at the club told me the Italians had lost one hundred and
+fifty thousand men on the Bainsizza plateau and on San Gabriele. He said
+they had lost forty thousand on the Carso besides. We had a drink and he
+talked. He said the fighting was over for the year down here and that
+the Italians had bitten off more than they could chew. He said the
+offensive in Flanders was going to the bad. If they killed men as they
+did this fall the Allies would be cooked in another year. He said we
+were all cooked but we were all right as long as we did not know it. We
+were all cooked. The thing was not to recognize it. The last country to
+realize they were cooked would win the war. We had another drink. Was I
+on somebody’s staff? No. He was. It was all balls. We were alone in the
+club sitting back in one of the big leather sofas. His boots were
+smoothly polished dull leather. They were beautiful boots. He said it
+was all balls. They thought only in divisions and man-power. They all
+squabbled about divisions and only killed them when they got them. They
+were all cooked. The Germans won the victories. By God they were
+soldiers. The old Hun was a soldier. But they were cooked too. We were
+all cooked. I asked about Russia. He said they were cooked already. I’d
+soon see they were cooked. Then the Austrians were cooked too. If they
+got some Hun divisions they could do it. Did he think they would attack
+this fall? Of course they would. The Italians were cooked. Everybody
+knew they were cooked. The old Hun would come down through the Trentino
+and cut the railway at Vicenza and then where would the Italians be?
+They tried that in ’sixteen, I said. Not with Germans. Yes, I said. But
+they probably wouldn’t do that, he said. It was too simple. They’d try
+something complicated and get royally cooked. I had to go, I said. I had
+to get back to the hospital. “Good-by,” he said. Then cheerily, “Every
+sort of luck!” There was a great contrast between his world pessimism
+and personal cheeriness.
+
+I stopped at a barber shop and was shaved and went home to the hospital.
+My leg was as well as it would get for a long time. I had been up for
+examination three days before. There were still some treatments to take
+before my course at the Ospedale Maggiore was finished and I walked
+along the side street practising not limping. An old man was cutting
+silhouettes under an arcade. I stopped to watch him. Two girls were
+posing and he cut their silhouettes together, snipping very fast and
+looking at them, his head on one side. The girls were giggling. He
+showed me the silhouettes before he pasted them on white paper and
+handed them to the girls.
+
+“They’re beautiful,” he said. “How about you, Tenente?”
+
+The girls went away looking at their silhouettes and laughing. They were
+nice-looking girls. One of them worked in the wine shop across from the
+hospital.
+
+“All right,” I said.
+
+“Take your cap off.”
+
+“No. With it on.”
+
+“It will not be so beautiful,” the old man said. “But,” he brightened,
+“it will be more military.”
+
+He snipped away at the black paper, then separated the two thicknesses
+and pasted the profiles on a card and handed them to me.
+
+“How much?”
+
+“That’s all right.” He waved his hand. “I just made them for you.”
+
+“Please.” I brought out some coppers. “For pleasure.”
+
+“No. I did them for a pleasure. Give them to your girl.”
+
+“Many thanks until we meet.”
+
+“Until I see thee.”
+
+I went on to the hospital. There were some letters, an official one, and
+some others. I was to have three weeks’ convalescent leave and then
+return to the front. I read it over carefully. Well, that was that. The
+convalescent leave started October fourth when my course was finished.
+Three weeks was twenty-one days. That made October twenty-fifth. I told
+them I would not be in and went to the restaurant a little way up the
+street from the hospital for supper and read my letters and the
+_Corriere Della Sera_ at the table. There was a letter from my
+grandfather, containing family news, patriotic encouragement, a draft
+for two hundred dollars, and a few clippings; a dull letter from the
+priest at our mess, a letter from a man I knew who was flying with the
+French and had gotten in with a wild gang and was telling about it, and
+a note from Rinaldi asking me how long I was going to skulk in Milano
+and what was all the news? He wanted me to bring him phonograph records
+and enclosed a list. I drank a small bottle of chianti with the meal,
+had a coffee afterward with a glass of cognac, finished the paper, put
+my letters in my pocket, left the paper on the table with the tip and
+went out. In my room at the hospital I undressed, put on pajamas and a
+dressing-gown, pulled down the curtains on the door that opened onto the
+balcony and sitting up in bed read Boston papers from a pile Mrs. Meyers
+had left for her boys at the hospital. The Chicago White Sox were
+winning the American League pennant and the New York Giants were leading
+the National League. Babe Ruth was a pitcher then playing for Boston.
+The papers were dull, the news was local and stale, and the war news was
+all old. The American news was all training camps. I was glad I wasn’t
+in a training camp. The baseball news was all I could read and I did not
+have the slightest interest in it. A number of papers together made it
+impossible to read with interest. It was not very timely but I read at
+it for a while. I wondered if America really got into the war, if they
+would close down the major leagues. They probably wouldn’t. There was
+still racing in Milan and the war could not be much worse. They had
+stopped racing in France. That was where our horse Japalac came from.
+Catherine was not due on duty until nine o’clock. I heard her passing
+along the floor when she first came on duty and once saw her pass in the
+hall. She went to several other rooms and finally came into mine.
+
+“I’m late, darling,” she said. “There was a lot to do. How are you?”
+
+I told her about my papers and the leave.
+
+“That’s lovely,” she said. “Where do you want to go?”
+
+“Nowhere. I want to stay here.”
+
+“That’s silly. You pick a place to go and I’ll come too.”
+
+“How will you work it?”
+
+“I don’t know. But I will.”
+
+“You’re pretty wonderful.”
+
+“No I’m not. But life isn’t hard to manage when you’ve nothing to lose.”
+
+“How do you mean?”
+
+“Nothing. I was only thinking how small obstacles seemed that once were
+so big.”
+
+“I should think it might be hard to manage.”
+
+“No it won’t, darling. If necessary I’ll simply leave. But it won’t come
+to that.”
+
+“Where should we go?”
+
+“I don’t care. Anywhere you want. Anywhere we don’t know people.”
+
+“Don’t you care where we go?”
+
+“No. I’ll like any place.”
+
+She seemed upset and taut.
+
+“What’s the matter, Catherine?”
+
+“Nothing. Nothing’s the matter.”
+
+“Yes there is.”
+
+“No nothing. Really nothing.”
+
+“I know there is. Tell me, darling. You can tell me.”
+
+“It’s nothing.”
+
+“Tell me.”
+
+“I don’t want to. I’m afraid I’ll make you unhappy or worry you.”
+
+“No it won’t.”
+
+“You’re sure? It doesn’t worry me but I’m afraid to worry you.”
+
+“It won’t if it doesn’t worry you.”
+
+“I don’t want to tell.”
+
+“Tell it.”
+
+“Do I have to?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I’m going to have a baby, darling. It’s almost three months along.
+You’re not worried, are you? Please please don’t. You mustn’t worry.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+“Is it all right?”
+
+“Of course.”
+
+“I did everything. I took everything but it didn’t make any difference.”
+
+“I’m not worried.”
+
+“I couldn’t help it, darling, and I haven’t worried about it. You
+mustn’t worry or feel badly.”
+
+“I only worry about you.”
+
+“That’s it. That’s what you mustn’t do. People have babies all the time.
+Everybody has babies. It’s a natural thing.”
+
+“You’re pretty wonderful.”
+
+“No I’m not. But you mustn’t mind, darling. I’ll try and not make
+trouble for you. I know I’ve made trouble now. But haven’t I been a good
+girl until now? You never knew it, did you?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“It will all be like that. You simply mustn’t worry. I can see you’re
+worrying. Stop it. Stop it right away. Wouldn’t you like a drink,
+darling? I know a drink always makes you feel cheerful.”
+
+“No. I feel cheerful. And you’re pretty wonderful.”
+
+“No I’m not. But I’ll fix everything to be together if you pick out a
+place for us to go. It ought to be lovely in October. We’ll have a
+lovely time, darling, and I’ll write you every day while you’re at the
+front.”
+
+“Where will you be?”
+
+“I don’t know yet. But somewhere splendid. I’ll look after all that.”
+
+We were quiet awhile and did not talk. Catherine was sitting on the bed
+and I was looking at her but we did not touch each other. We were apart
+as when some one comes into a room and people are self-conscious. She
+put out her hand and took mine.
+
+“You aren’t angry are you, darling?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“And you don’t feel trapped?”
+
+“Maybe a little. But not by you.”
+
+“I didn’t mean by me. You mustn’t be stupid. I meant trapped at all.”
+
+“You always feel trapped biologically.”
+
+She went away a long way without stirring or removing her hand.
+
+“‘Always’ isn’t a pretty word.”
+
+“I’m sorry.”
+
+“It’s all right. But you see I’ve never had a baby and I’ve never even
+loved any one. And I’ve tried to be the way you wanted and then you talk
+about ‘always.’”
+
+“I could cut off my tongue,” I offered.
+
+“Oh, darling!” she came back from wherever she had been. “You mustn’t
+mind me.” We were both together again and the self-consciousness was
+gone. “We really are the same one and we mustn’t misunderstand on
+purpose.”
+
+“We won’t.”
+
+“But people do. They love each other and they misunderstand on purpose
+and they fight and then suddenly they aren’t the same one.”
+
+“We won’t fight.”
+
+“We mustn’t. Because there’s only us two and in the world there’s all
+the rest of them. If anything comes between us we’re gone and then they
+have us.”
+
+“They won’t get us,” I said. “Because you’re too brave. Nothing ever
+happens to the brave.”
+
+“They die of course.”
+
+“But only once.”
+
+“I don’t know. Who said that?”
+
+“The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one?”
+
+“Of course. Who said it?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“He was probably a coward,” she said. “He knew a great deal about
+cowards but nothing about the brave. The brave dies perhaps two thousand
+deaths if he’s intelligent. He simply doesn’t mention them.”
+
+“I don’t know. It’s hard to see inside the head of the brave.”
+
+“Yes. That’s how they keep that way.”
+
+“You’re an authority.”
+
+“You’re right, darling. That was deserved.”
+
+“You’re brave.”
+
+“No,” she said. “But I would like to be.”
+
+“I’m not,” I said, “I know where I stand. I’ve been out long enough to
+know. I’m like a ball-player that bats two hundred and thirty and knows
+he’s no better.”
+
+“What is a ball-player that bats two hundred and thirty? It’s awfully
+impressive.”
+
+“It’s not. It means a mediocre hitter in baseball.”
+
+“But still a hitter,” she prodded me.
+
+“I guess we’re both conceited,” I said. “But you are brave.”
+
+“No. But I hope to be.”
+
+“We’re both brave,” I said. “And I’m very brave when I’ve had a drink.”
+
+“We’re splendid people,” Catherine said. She went over to the armoire
+and brought me the cognac and a glass. “Have a drink, darling,” she
+said. “You’ve been awfully good.”
+
+“I don’t really want one.”
+
+“Take one.”
+
+“All right.” I poured the water glass a third full of cognac and drank
+it off.
+
+“That was very big,” she said. “I know brandy is for heroes. But you
+shouldn’t exaggerate.”
+
+“Where will we live after the war?”
+
+“In an old people’s home probably,” she said. “For three years I looked
+forward very childishly to the war ending at Christmas. But now I look
+forward till when our son will be a lieutenant commander.”
+
+“Maybe he’ll be a general.”
+
+“If it’s an hundred years’ war he’ll have time to try both of the
+services.”
+
+“Don’t you want a drink?”
+
+“No. It always makes you happy, darling, and it only makes me dizzy.”
+
+“Didn’t you ever drink brandy?”
+
+“No, darling. I’m a very old-fashioned wife.”
+
+I reached down to the floor for the bottle and poured another drink.
+
+“I’d better go to have a look at your compatriots,” Catherine said.
+“Perhaps you’ll read the papers until I come back.”
+
+“Do you have to go?”
+
+“Now or later.”
+
+“All right. Now.”
+
+“I’ll come back later.”
+
+“I’ll have finished the papers,” I said.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXII
+
+It turned cold that night and the next day it was raining. Coming home
+from the Ospedale Maggiore it rained very hard and I was wet when I came
+in. Up in my room the rain was coming down heavily outside on the
+balcony, and the wind blew it against the glass doors. I changed my
+clothing and drank some brandy but the brandy did not taste good. I felt
+sick in the night and in the morning after breakfast I was nauseated.
+
+“There is no doubt about it,” the house surgeon said. “Look at the
+whites of his eyes, Miss.”
+
+Miss Gage looked. They had me look in a glass. The whites of the eyes
+were yellow and it was the jaundice. I was sick for two weeks with it.
+For that reason we did not spend a convalescent leave together. We had
+planned to go to Pallanza on Lago Maggiore. It is nice there in the fall
+when the leaves turn. There are walks you can take and you can troll for
+trout in the lake. It would have been better than Stresa because there
+are fewer people at Pallanza. Stresa is so easy to get to from Milan
+that there are always people you know. There is a nice village at
+Pallanza and you can row out to the islands where the fishermen live and
+there is a restaurant on the biggest island. But we did not go.
+
+One day while I was in bed with jaundice Miss Van Campen came in the
+room, opened the door into the armoire and saw the empty bottles there.
+I had sent a load of them down by the porter and I believe she must have
+seen them going out and come up to find some more. They were mostly
+vermouth bottles, marsala bottles, capri bottles, empty chianti flasks
+and a few cognac bottles. The porter had carried out the large bottles,
+those that had held vermouth, and the straw-covered chianti flasks, and
+left the brandy bottles for the last. It was the brandy bottles and a
+bottle shaped like a bear, which had held kümmel, that Miss Van Campen
+found. The bear-shaped bottle enraged her particularly. She held it up;
+the bear was sitting up on his haunches with his paws up; there was a
+cork in his glass head and a few sticky crystals at the bottom. I
+laughed.
+
+“It was kümmel,” I said. “The best kümmel comes in those bear-shaped
+bottles. It comes from Russia.”
+
+“Those are all brandy bottles, aren’t they?” Miss Van Campen asked.
+
+“I can’t see them all,” I said. “But they probably are.”
+
+“How long has this been going on?”
+
+“I bought them and brought them in myself,” I said. “I have had Italian
+officers visit me frequently and I have kept brandy to offer them.”
+
+“You haven’t been drinking it yourself?” she said.
+
+“I have also drunk it myself.”
+
+“Brandy,” she said. “Eleven empty bottles of brandy and that bear
+liquid.”
+
+“Kümmel.”
+
+“I will send for some one to take them away. Those are all the empty
+bottles you have?”
+
+“For the moment.”
+
+“And I was pitying you having jaundice. Pity is something that is wasted
+on you.”
+
+“Thank you.”
+
+“I suppose you can’t be blamed for not wanting to go back to the front.
+But I should think you would try something more intelligent than
+producing jaundice with alcoholism.”
+
+“With what?”
+
+“With alcoholism. You heard me say it.” I did not say anything. “Unless
+you find something else I’m afraid you will have to go back to the front
+when you are through with your jaundice. I don’t believe self-inflicted
+jaundice entitles you to a convalescent leave.”
+
+“You don’t?”
+
+“I do not.”
+
+“Have you ever had jaundice, Miss Van Campen?”
+
+“No, but I have seen a great deal of it.”
+
+“You noticed how the patients enjoyed it?”
+
+“I suppose it is better than the front.”
+
+“Miss Van Campen,” I said, “did you ever know a man who tried to disable
+himself by kicking himself in the scrotum?”
+
+Miss Van Campen ignored the actual question. She had to ignore it or
+leave the room. She was not ready to leave because she had disliked me
+for a long time and she was now cashing in.
+
+“I have known many men to escape the front through self-inflicted
+wounds.”
+
+“That wasn’t the question. I have seen self-inflicted wounds also. I
+asked you if you had ever known a man who had tried to disable himself
+by kicking himself in the scrotum. Because that is the nearest sensation
+to jaundice and it is a sensation that I believe few women have ever
+experienced. That was why I asked you if you had ever had the jaundice,
+Miss Van Campen, because—” Miss Van Campen left the room. Later Miss
+Gage came in.
+
+“What did you say to Van Campen? She was furious.”
+
+“We were comparing sensations. I was going to suggest that she had never
+experienced childbirth——”
+
+“You’re a fool,” Gage said. “She’s after your scalp.”
+
+“She has my scalp,” I said. “She’s lost me my leave and she might try
+and get me court-martialled. She’s mean enough.”
+
+“She never liked you,” Gage said. “What’s it about?”
+
+“She says I’ve drunk myself into jaundice so as not to go back to the
+front.”
+
+“Pooh,” said Gage. “I’ll swear you’ve never taken a drink. Everybody
+will swear you’ve never taken a drink.”
+
+“She found the bottles.”
+
+“I’ve told you a hundred times to clear out those bottles. Where are
+they now?”
+
+“In the armoire.”
+
+“Have you a suitcase?”
+
+“No. Put them in that rucksack.”
+
+Miss Gage packed the bottles in the rucksack. “I’ll give them to the
+porter,” she said. She started for the door.
+
+“Just a minute,” Miss Van Campen said. “I’ll take those bottles.” She
+had the porter with her. “Carry them, please,” she said. “I want to show
+them to the doctor when I make my report.”
+
+She went down the hall. The porter carried the sack. He knew what was in
+it.
+
+Nothing happened except that I lost my leave.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIII
+
+The night I was to return to the front I sent the porter down to hold a
+seat for me on the train when it came from Turin. The train was to leave
+at midnight. It was made up at Turin and reached Milan about half-past
+ten at night and lay in the station until time to leave. You had to be
+there when it came in, to get a seat. The porter took a friend with him,
+a machine-gunner on leave who worked in a tailor shop, and was sure that
+between them they could hold a place. I gave them money for platform
+tickets and had them take my baggage. There was a big rucksack and two
+musettes.
+
+I said good-by at the hospital at about five o’clock and went out. The
+porter had my baggage in his lodge and I told him I would be at the
+station a little before midnight. His wife called me “Signorino” and
+cried. She wiped her eyes and shook hands and then cried again. I patted
+her on the back and she cried once more. She had done my mending and was
+a very short dumpy, happy-faced woman with white hair. When she cried
+her whole face went to pieces. I went down to the corner where there was
+a wine shop and waited inside looking out the window. It was dark
+outside and cold and misty. I paid for my coffee and grappa and I
+watched the people going by in the light from the window. I saw
+Catherine and knocked on the window. She looked, saw me and smiled, and
+I went out to meet her. She was wearing a dark blue cape and a soft felt
+hat. We walked along together, along the sidewalk past the wine shops,
+then across the market square and up the street and through the archway
+to the cathedral square. There were street-car tracks and beyond them
+was the cathedral. It was white and wet in the mist. We crossed the tram
+tracks. On our left were the shops, their windows lighted, and the
+entrance to the galleria. There was a fog in the square and when we came
+close to the front of the cathedral it was very big and the stone was
+wet.
+
+“Would you like to go in?”
+
+“No,” Catherine said. We walked along. There was a soldier standing with
+his girl in the shadow of one of the stone buttresses ahead of us and we
+passed them. They were standing tight up against the stone and he had
+put his cape around her.
+
+“They’re like us,” I said.
+
+“Nobody is like us,” Catherine said. She did not mean it happily.
+
+“I wish they had some place to go.”
+
+“It mightn’t do them any good.”
+
+“I don’t know. Everybody ought to have some place to go.”
+
+“They have the cathedral,” Catherine said. We were past it now. We
+crossed the far end of the square and looked back at the cathedral. It
+was fine in the mist. We were standing in front of the leather goods
+shop. There were riding boots, a rucksack and ski boots in the window.
+Each article was set apart as an exhibit; the rucksack in the centre,
+the riding boots on one side and the ski boots on the other. The leather
+was dark and oiled smooth as a used saddle. The electric light made high
+lights on the dull oiled leather.
+
+“We’ll ski some time.”
+
+“In two months there will be skiing at Mürren,” Catherine said.
+
+“Let’s go there.”
+
+“All right,” she said. We went on past other windows and turned down a
+side street.
+
+“I’ve never been this way.”
+
+“This is the way I go to the hospital,” I said. It was a narrow street
+and we kept on the right-hand side. There were many people passing in
+the fog. There were shops and all the windows were lighted. We looked in
+a window at a pile of cheeses. I stopped in front of an armorer’s shop.
+
+“Come in a minute. I have to buy a gun.”
+
+“What sort of gun?”
+
+“A pistol.” We went in and I unbuttoned my belt and laid it with the
+empty holster on the counter. Two women were behind the counter. The
+women brought out several pistols.
+
+“It must fit this,” I said, opening the holster. It was a gray leather
+holster and I had bought it secondhand to wear in the town.
+
+“Have they good pistols?” Catherine asked.
+
+“They’re all about the same. Can I try this one?” I asked the woman.
+
+“I have no place now to shoot,” she said. “But it is very good. You will
+not make a mistake with it.”
+
+I snapped it and pulled back the action. The spring was rather strong
+but it worked smoothly. I sighted it and snapped it again.
+
+“It is used,” the woman said. “It belonged to an officer who was an
+excellent shot.”
+
+“Did you sell it to him?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“How did you get it back?”
+
+“From his orderly.”
+
+“Maybe you have mine,” I said. “How much is this?”
+
+“Fifty lire. It is very cheap.”
+
+“All right. I want two extra clips and a box of cartridges.”
+
+She brought them from under the counter.
+
+“Have you any need for a sword?” she asked. “I have some used swords
+very cheap.”
+
+“I’m going to the front,” I said.
+
+“Oh yes, then you won’t need a sword,” she said.
+
+I paid for the cartridges and the pistol, filled the magazine and put it
+in place, put the pistol in my empty holster, filled the extra clips
+with cartridges and put them in the leather slots on the holster and
+then buckled on my belt. The pistol felt heavy on the belt. Still, I
+thought, it was better to have a regulation pistol. You could always get
+shells.
+
+“Now we’re fully armed,” I said. “That was the one thing I had to
+remember to do. Some one got my other one going to the hospital.”
+
+“I hope it’s a good pistol,” Catherine said.
+
+“Was there anything else?” the woman asked.
+
+“I don’t believe so.”
+
+“The pistol has a lanyard,” she said.
+
+“So I noticed.” The woman wanted to sell something else.
+
+“You don’t need a whistle?”
+
+“I don’t believe so.”
+
+The woman said good-by and we went out onto the sidewalk. Catherine
+looked in the window. The woman looked out and bowed to us.
+
+“What are those little mirrors set in wood for?”
+
+“They’re for attracting birds. They twirl them out in the field and
+larks see them and come out and the Italians shoot them.”
+
+“They are an ingenious people,” Catherine said. “You don’t shoot larks
+do you, darling, in America?”
+
+“Not especially.”
+
+We crossed the street and started to walk up the other side.
+
+“I feel better now,” Catherine said. “I felt terrible when we started.”
+
+“We always feel good when we’re together.”
+
+“We always will be together.”
+
+“Yes, except that I’m going away at midnight.”
+
+“Don’t think about it, darling.”
+
+We walked on up the street. The fog made the lights yellow.
+
+“Aren’t you tired?” Catherine asked.
+
+“How about you?”
+
+“I’m all right. It’s fun to walk.”
+
+“But let’s not do it too long.”
+
+“No.”
+
+We turned down a side street where there were no lights and walked in
+the street. I stopped and kissed Catherine. While I kissed her I felt
+her hand on my shoulder. She had pulled my cape around her so it covered
+both of us. We were standing in the street against a high wall.
+
+“Let’s go some place,” I said.
+
+“Good,” said Catherine. We walked on along the street until it came out
+onto a wider street that was beside a canal. On the other side was a
+brick wall and buildings. Ahead, down the street, I saw a street-car
+cross a bridge.
+
+“We can get a cab up at the bridge,” I said. We stood on the bridge in
+the fog waiting for a carriage. Several street-cars passed, full of
+people going home. Then a carriage came along but there was some one in
+it. The fog was turning to rain.
+
+“We could walk or take a tram,” Catherine said.
+
+“One will be along,” I said. “They go by here.”
+
+“Here one comes,” she said.
+
+The driver stopped his horse and lowered the metal sign on his meter.
+The top of the carriage was up and there were drops of water on the
+driver’s coat. His varnished hat was shining in the wet. We sat back in
+the seat together and the top of the carriage made it dark.
+
+“Where did you tell him to go?”
+
+“To the station. There’s a hotel across from the station where we can
+go.”
+
+“We can go the way we are? Without luggage?”
+
+“Yes,” I said.
+
+It was a long ride to the station up side streets in the rain.
+
+“Won’t we have dinner?” Catherine asked. “I’m afraid I’ll be hungry.”
+
+“We’ll have it in our room.”
+
+“I haven’t anything to wear. I haven’t even a nightgown.”
+
+“We’ll get one,” I said and called to the driver.
+
+“Go to the Via Manzoni and up that.” He nodded and turned off to the
+left at the next corner. On the big street Catherine watched for a shop.
+
+“Here’s a place,” she said. I stopped the driver and Catherine got out,
+walked across the sidewalk and went inside. I sat back in the carriage
+and waited for her. It was raining and I could smell the wet street and
+the horse steaming in the rain. She came back with a package and got in
+and we drove on.
+
+“I was very extravagant, darling,” she said, “but it’s a fine
+nightgown.”
+
+At the hotel I asked Catherine to wait in the carriage while I went in
+and spoke to the manager. There were plenty of rooms. Then I went out to
+the carriage, paid the driver, and Catherine and I walked in together.
+The small boy in buttons carried the package. The manager bowed us
+toward the elevator. There was much red plush and brass. The manager
+went up in the elevator with us.
+
+“Monsieur and Madame wish dinner in their room?”
+
+“Yes. Will you have the menu brought up?” I said.
+
+“You wish something special for dinner. Some game or a soufflet?”
+
+The elevator passed three floors with a click each time, then clicked
+and stopped.
+
+“What have you as game?”
+
+“I could get a pheasant, or a woodcock.”
+
+“A woodcock,” I said. We walked down the corridor. The carpet was worn.
+There were many doors. The manager stopped and unlocked a door and
+opened it.
+
+“Here you are. A lovely room.”
+
+The small boy in buttons put the package on the table in the centre of
+the room. The manager opened the curtains.
+
+“It is foggy outside,” he said. The room was furnished in red plush.
+There were many mirrors, two chairs and a large bed with a satin
+coverlet. A door led to the bathroom.
+
+“I will send up the menu,” the manager said. He bowed and went out.
+
+I went to the window and looked out, then pulled a cord that shut the
+thick plush curtains. Catherine was sitting on the bed, looking at the
+cut glass chandelier. She had taken her hat off and her hair shone under
+the light. She saw herself in one of the mirrors and put her hands to
+her hair. I saw her in three other mirrors. She did not look happy. She
+let her cape fall on the bed.
+
+“What’s the matter, darling?”
+
+“I never felt like a whore before,” she said. I went over to the window
+and pulled the curtain aside and looked out. I had not thought it would
+be like this.
+
+“You’re not a whore.”
+
+“I know it, darling. But it isn’t nice to feel like one.” Her voice was
+dry and flat.
+
+“This was the best hotel we could get in,” I said. I looked out the
+window. Across the square were the lights of the station. There were
+carriages going by on the street and I saw the trees in the park. The
+lights from the hotel shone on the wet pavement. Oh, hell, I thought, do
+we have to argue now?
+
+“Come over here please,” Catherine said. The flatness was all gone out
+of her voice. “Come over, please. I’m a good girl again.” I looked over
+at the bed. She was smiling.
+
+I went over and sat on the bed beside her and kissed her.
+
+“You’re my good girl.”
+
+“I’m certainly yours,” she said.
+
+After we had eaten we felt fine, and then after, we felt very happy and
+in a little time the room felt like our own home. My room at the
+hospital had been our own home and this room was our home too in the
+same way.
+
+Catherine wore my tunic over her shoulders while we ate. We were very
+hungry and the meal was good and we drank a bottle of Capri and a bottle
+of St. Estephe. I drank most of it but Catherine drank some and it made
+her feel splendid. For dinner we had a woodcock with soufflé potatoes
+and purée de marron, a salad, and zabaione for dessert.
+
+“It’s a fine room,” Catherine said. “It’s a lovely room. We should have
+stayed here all the time we’ve been in Milan.”
+
+“It’s a funny room. But it’s nice.”
+
+“Vice is a wonderful thing,” Catherine said. “The people who go in for
+it seem to have good taste about it. The red plush is really fine. It’s
+just the thing. And the mirrors are very attractive.”
+
+“You’re a lovely girl.”
+
+“I don’t know how a room like this would be for waking up in the
+morning. But it’s really a splendid room.” I poured another glass of St.
+Estephe.
+
+“I wish we could do something really sinful,” Catherine said.
+“Everything we do seems so innocent and simple. I can’t believe we do
+anything wrong.”
+
+“You’re a grand girl.”
+
+“I only feel hungry. I get terribly hungry.”
+
+“You’re a fine simple girl,” I said.
+
+“I am a simple girl. No one ever understood it except you.”
+
+“Once when I first met you I spent an afternoon thinking how we would go
+to the Hotel Cavour together and how it would be.”
+
+“That was awfully cheeky of you. This isn’t the Cavour is it?”
+
+“No. They wouldn’t have taken us in there.”
+
+“They’ll take us in some time. But that’s how we differ, darling. I
+never thought about anything.”
+
+“Didn’t you ever at all?”
+
+“A little,” she said.
+
+“Oh you’re a lovely girl.”
+
+I poured another glass of wine.
+
+“I’m a very simple girl,” Catherine said.
+
+“I didn’t think so at first. I thought you were a crazy girl.”
+
+“I was a little crazy. But I wasn’t crazy in any complicated manner. I
+didn’t confuse you did I, darling?”
+
+“Wine is a grand thing,” I said. “It makes you forget all the bad.”
+
+“It’s lovely,” said Catherine. “But it’s given my father gout very
+badly.”
+
+“Have you a father?”
+
+“Yes,” said Catherine. “He has gout. You won’t ever have to meet him.
+Haven’t you a father?”
+
+“No,” I said. “A step-father.”
+
+“Will I like him?”
+
+“You won’t have to meet him.”
+
+“We have such a fine time,” Catherine said. “I don’t take any interest
+in anything else any more. I’m so very happy married to you.”
+
+The waiter came and took away the things. After a while we were very
+still and we could hear the rain. Down below on the street a motor car
+honked.
+
+               “‘But at my back I always hear
+               Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near,’”
+
+I said.
+
+“I know that poem,” Catherine said. “It’s by Marvell. But it’s about a
+girl who wouldn’t live with a man.”
+
+My head felt very clear and cold and I wanted to talk facts.
+
+“Where will you have the baby?”
+
+“I don’t know. The best place I can find.”
+
+“How will you arrange it?”
+
+“The best way I can. Don’t worry, darling. We may have several babies
+before the war is over.”
+
+“It’s nearly time to go.”
+
+“I know. You can make it time if you want.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Then don’t worry, darling. You were fine until now and now you’re
+worrying.”
+
+“I won’t. How often will you write?”
+
+“Every day. Do they read your letters?”
+
+“They can’t read English enough to hurt any.”
+
+“I’ll make them very confusing,” Catherine said.
+
+“But not too confusing.”
+
+“I’ll just make them a little confusing.”
+
+“I’m afraid we have to start to go.”
+
+“All right, darling.”
+
+“I hate to leave our fine house.”
+
+“So do I.”
+
+“But we have to go.”
+
+“All right. But we’re never settled in our home very long.”
+
+“We will be.”
+
+“I’ll have a fine home for you when you come back.”
+
+“Maybe I’ll be back right away.”
+
+“Perhaps you’ll be hurt just a little in the foot.”
+
+“Or the lobe of the ear.”
+
+“No I want your ears the way they are.”
+
+“And not my feet?”
+
+“Your feet have been hit already.”
+
+“We have to go, darling. Really.”
+
+“All right. You go first.”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXIV
+
+We walked down the stairs instead of taking the elevator. The carpet on
+the stairs was worn. I had paid for the dinner when it came up and the
+waiter, who had brought it, was sitting on a chair near the door. He
+jumped up and bowed and I went with him into the side room and paid the
+bill for the room. The manager had remembered me as a friend and refused
+payment in advance but when he retired he had remembered to have the
+waiter stationed at the door so that I should not get out without
+paying. I suppose that had happened; even with his friends. One had so
+many friends in a war.
+
+I asked the waiter to get us a carriage and he took Catherine’s package
+that I was carrying and went out with an umbrella. Outside through the
+window we saw him crossing the street in the rain. We stood in the side
+room and looked out the window.
+
+“How do you feel, Cat?”
+
+“Sleepy.”
+
+“I feel hollow and hungry.”
+
+“Have you anything to eat?”
+
+“Yes, in my musette.”
+
+I saw the carriage coming. It stopped, the horse’s head hanging in the
+rain, and the waiter stepped out, opened his umbrella, and came toward
+the hotel. We met him at the door and walked out under the umbrella down
+the wet walk to the carriage at the curb. Water was running in the
+gutter.
+
+“There is your package on the seat,” the waiter said. He stood with the
+umbrella until we were in and I had tipped him.
+
+“Many thanks. Pleasant journey,” he said. The coachman lifted the reins
+and the horse started. The waiter turned away under the umbrella and
+went toward the hotel. We drove down the street and turned to the left,
+then came around to the right in front of the station. There were two
+carabinieri standing under the light just out of the rain. The light
+shone on their hats. The rain was clear and transparent against the
+light from the station. A porter came out from under the shelter of the
+station, his shoulders up against the rain.
+
+“No,” I said. “Thanks. I don’t need thee.”
+
+He went back under the shelter of the archway. I turned to Catherine.
+Her face was in the shadow from the hood of the carriage.
+
+“We might as well say good-by.”
+
+“I can’t go in?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Good-by, Cat.”
+
+“Will you tell him the hospital?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+I told the driver the address to drive to. He nodded.
+
+“Good-by,” I said. “Take good care of yourself and young Catherine.”
+
+“Good-by, darling.”
+
+“Good-by,” I said. I stepped out into the rain and the carriage started.
+Catherine leaned out and I saw her face in the light. She smiled and
+waved. The carriage went up the street, Catherine pointed in toward the
+archway. I looked, there were only the two carabinieri and the archway.
+I realized she meant for me to get in out of the rain. I went in and
+stood and watched the carriage turn the corner. Then I started through
+the station and down the runway to the train.
+
+The porter was on the platform looking for me. I followed him into the
+train, crowding past people and along the aisle and in through a door to
+where the machine-gunner sat in the corner of a full compartment. My
+rucksack and musettes were above his head on the luggage rack. There
+were many men standing in the corridor and the men in the compartment
+all looked at us when we came in. There were not enough places in the
+train and every one was hostile. The machine-gunner stood up for me to
+sit down. Some one tapped me on the shoulder. I looked around. It was a
+very tall gaunt captain of artillery with a red scar along his jaw. He
+had looked through the glass on the corridor and then come in.
+
+“What do you say?” I asked. I had turned and faced him. He was taller
+than I and his face was very thin under the shadow of his cap-visor and
+the scar was new and shiny. Every one in the compartment was looking at
+me.
+
+“You can’t do that,” he said. “You can’t have a soldier save you a
+place.”
+
+“I have done it.”
+
+He swallowed and I saw his Adam’s apple go up and then down. The
+machine-gunner stood in front of the place. Other men looked in through
+the glass. No one in the compartment said anything.
+
+“You have no right to do that. I was here two hours before you came.”
+
+“What do you want?”
+
+“The seat.”
+
+“So do I.”
+
+I watched his face and could feel the whole compartment against me. I
+did not blame them. He was in the right. But I wanted the seat. Still no
+one said anything.
+
+Oh, hell, I thought.
+
+“Sit down, Signor Capitano,” I said. The machine-gunner moved out of the
+way and the tall captain sat down. He looked at me. His face seemed
+hurt. But he had the seat. “Get my things,” I said to the
+machine-gunner. We went out in the corridor. The train was full and I
+knew there was no chance of a place. I gave the porter and the
+machine-gunner ten lire apiece. They went down the corridor and outside
+on the platform looking in the windows but there were no places.
+
+“Maybe some will get off at Brescia,” the porter said.
+
+“More will get on at Brescia,” said the machine-gunner. I said good-by
+to them and we shook hands and they left. They both felt badly. Inside
+the train we were all standing in the corridor when the train started. I
+watched the lights of the station and the yards as we went out. It was
+still raining and soon the windows were wet and you could not see out.
+Later I slept on the floor of the corridor; first putting my pocket-book
+with my money and papers in it inside my shirt and trousers so that it
+was inside the leg of my breeches. I slept all night, waking at Brescia
+and Verona when more men got on the train, but going back to sleep at
+once. I had my head on one of the musettes and my arms around the other
+and I could feel the pack and they could all walk over me if they
+wouldn’t step on me. Men were sleeping on the floor all down the
+corridor. Others stood holding on to the window rods or leaning against
+the doors. That train was always crowded.
+
+
+
+
+                                BOOK III
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXV
+
+Now in the fall the trees were all bare and the roads were muddy. I rode
+to Gorizia from Udine on a camion. We passed other camions on the road
+and I looked at the country. The mulberry trees were bare and the fields
+were brown. There were wet dead leaves on the road from the rows of bare
+trees and men were working on the road, tamping stone in the ruts from
+piles of crushed stone along the side of the road between the trees. We
+saw the town with a mist over it that cut off the mountains. We crossed
+the river and I saw that it was running high. It had been raining in the
+mountains. We came into the town past the factories and then the houses
+and villas and I saw that many more houses had been hit. On a narrow
+street we passed a British Red Cross ambulance. The driver wore a cap
+and his face was thin and very tanned. I did not know him. I got down
+from the camion in the big square in front of the Town Major’s house,
+the driver handed down my rucksack and I put it on and swung on the two
+musettes and walked to our villa. It did not feel like a homecoming.
+
+I walked down the damp gravel driveway looking at the villa through the
+trees. The windows were all shut but the door was open. I went in and
+found the major sitting at a table in the bare room with maps and typed
+sheets of paper on the wall.
+
+“Hello,” he said. “How are you?” He looked older and drier.
+
+“I’m good,” I said. “How is everything?”
+
+“It’s all over,” he said. “Take off your kit and sit down.” I put my
+pack and the two musettes on the floor and my cap on the pack. I brought
+the other chair over from the wall and sat down by the desk.
+
+“It’s been a bad summer,” the major said. “Are you strong now?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Did you ever get the decorations?”
+
+“Yes. I got them fine. Thank you very much.”
+
+“Let’s see them.”
+
+I opened my cape so he could see the two ribbons.
+
+“Did you get the boxes with the medals?”
+
+“No. Just the papers.”
+
+“The boxes will come later. That takes more time.”
+
+“What do you want me to do?”
+
+“The cars are all away. There are six up north at Caporetto. You know
+Caporetto?”
+
+“Yes,” I said. I remembered it as a little white town with a campanile
+in a valley. It was a clean little town and there was a fine fountain in
+the square.
+
+“They are working from there. There are many sick now. The fighting is
+over.”
+
+“Where are the others?”
+
+“There are two up in the mountains and four still on the Bainsizza. The
+other two ambulance sections are in the Carso with the third army.”
+
+“What do you wish me to do?”
+
+“You can go and take over the four cars on the Bainsizza if you like.
+Gino has been up there a long time. You haven’t seen it up there, have
+you?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“It was very bad. We lost three cars.”
+
+“I heard about it.”
+
+“Yes, Rinaldi wrote you.”
+
+“Where is Rinaldi?”
+
+“He is here at the hospital. He has had a summer and fall of it.”
+
+“I believe it.”
+
+“It has been bad,” the major said. “You couldn’t believe how bad it’s
+been. I’ve often thought you were lucky to be hit when you were.”
+
+“I know I was.”
+
+“Next year will be worse,” the major said. “Perhaps they will attack
+now. They say they are to attack but I can’t believe it. It is too late.
+You saw the river?”
+
+“Yes. It’s high already.”
+
+“I don’t believe they will attack now that the rains have started. We
+will have the snow soon. What about your countrymen? Will there be other
+Americans besides yourself?”
+
+“They are training an army of ten million.”
+
+“I hope we get some of them. But the French will hog them all. We’ll
+never get any down here. All right. You stay here to-night and go out
+to-morrow with the little car and send Gino back. I’ll send somebody
+with you that knows the road. Gino will tell you everything. They are
+shelling quite a little still but it is all over. You will want to see
+the Bainsizza.”
+
+“I’m glad to see it. I am glad to be back with you again, Signor
+Maggiore.”
+
+He smiled. “You are very good to say so. I am very tired of this war. If
+I was away I do not believe I would come back.”
+
+“Is it so bad?”
+
+“Yes. It is so bad and worse. Go get cleaned up and find your friend
+Rinaldi.”
+
+I went out and carried my bags up the stairs. Rinaldi was not in the
+room but his things were there and I sat down on the bed and unwrapped
+my puttees and took the shoe off my right foot. Then I lay back on the
+bed. I was tired and my right foot hurt. It seemed silly to lie on the
+bed with one shoe off, so I sat up and unlaced the other shoe and
+dropped it on the floor, then lay back on the blanket again. The room
+was stuffy with the window closed but I was too tired to get up and open
+it. I saw my things were all in one corner of the room. Outside it was
+getting dark. I lay on the bed and thought about Catherine and waited
+for Rinaldi. I was going to try not to think about Catherine except at
+night before I went to sleep. But now I was tired and there was nothing
+to do, so I lay and thought about her. I was thinking about her when
+Rinaldi came in. He looked just the same. Perhaps he was a little
+thinner.
+
+“Well, baby,” he said. I sat up on the bed. He came over, sat down and
+put his arm around me. “Good old baby.” He whacked me on the back and I
+held both his arms.
+
+“Old baby,” he said. “Let me see your knee.”
+
+“I’ll have to take off my pants.”
+
+“Take off your pants, baby. We’re all friends here. I want to see what
+kind of a job they did.” I stood up, took off the breeches and pulled
+off the knee-brace. Rinaldi sat on the floor and bent the knee gently
+back and forth. He ran his finger along the scar; put his thumbs
+together over the kneecap and rocked the knee gently with his fingers.
+
+“Is that all the articulation you have?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“It’s a crime to send you back. They ought to get complete
+articulation.”
+
+“It’s a lot better than it was. It was stiff as a board.”
+
+Rinaldi bent it more. I watched his hands. He had fine surgeon’s hands.
+I looked at the top of his head, his hair shiny and parted smoothly. He
+bent the knee too far.
+
+“Ouch!” I said.
+
+“You ought to have more treatment on it with the machines,” Rinaldi
+said.
+
+“It’s better than it was.”
+
+“I see that, baby. This is something I know more about than you.” He
+stood up and sat down on the bed. “The knee itself is a good job.” He
+was through with the knee. “Tell me all about everything.”
+
+“There’s nothing to tell,” I said. “I’ve led a quiet life.”
+
+“You act like a married man,” he said. “What’s the matter with you?”
+
+“Nothing,” I said. “What’s the matter with you?”
+
+“This war is killing me,” Rinaldi said, “I am very depressed by it.” He
+folded his hands over his knee.
+
+“Oh,” I said.
+
+“What’s the matter? Can’t I even have human impulses?”
+
+“No. I can see you’ve been having a fine time. Tell me.”
+
+“All summer and all fall I’ve operated. I work all the time. I do
+everybody’s work. All the hard ones they leave to me. By God, baby, I am
+becoming a lovely surgeon.”
+
+“That sounds better.”
+
+“I never think. No, by God, I don’t think; I operate.”
+
+“That’s right.”
+
+“But now, baby, it’s all over. I don’t operate now and I feel like hell.
+This is a terrible war, baby. You believe me when I say it. Now you
+cheer me up. Did you bring the phonograph records?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+They were wrapped in paper in a cardboard box in my rucksack. I was too
+tired to get them out.
+
+“Don’t you feel good yourself, baby?”
+
+“I feel like hell.”
+
+“This war is terrible,” Rinaldi said. “Come on. We’ll both get drunk and
+be cheerful. Then we’ll go get the ashes dragged. Then we’ll feel fine.”
+
+“I’ve had the jaundice,” I said, “and I can’t get drunk.”
+
+“Oh, baby, how you’ve come back to me. You come back serious and with a
+liver. I tell you this war is a bad thing. Why did we make it anyway?”
+
+“We’ll have a drink. I don’t want to get drunk but we’ll have a drink.”
+
+Rinaldi went across the room to the washstand and brought back two
+glasses and a bottle of cognac.
+
+“It’s Austrian cognac,” he said. “Seven stars. It’s all they captured on
+San Gabriele.”
+
+“Were you up there?”
+
+“No. I haven’t been anywhere. I’ve been here all the time operating.
+Look, baby, this is your old toothbrushing glass. I kept it all the time
+to remind me of you.”
+
+“To remind you to brush your teeth.”
+
+“No. I have my own too. I kept this to remind me of you trying to brush
+away the Villa Rossa from your teeth in the morning, swearing and eating
+aspirin and cursing harlots. Every time I see that glass I think of you
+trying to clean your conscience with a toothbrush.” He came over to the
+bed. “Kiss me once and tell me you’re not serious.”
+
+“I never kiss you. You’re an ape.”
+
+“I know, you are the fine good Anglo-Saxon boy. I know. You are the
+remorse boy, I know. I will wait till I see the Anglo-Saxon brushing
+away harlotry with a toothbrush.”
+
+“Put some cognac in the glass.”
+
+We touched glasses and drank. Rinaldi laughed at me.
+
+“I will get you drunk and take out your liver and put you in a good
+Italian liver and make you a man again.”
+
+I held the glass for some more cognac. It was dark outside now. Holding
+the glass of cognac, I went over and opened the window. The rain had
+stopped falling. It was colder outside and there was a mist in the
+trees.
+
+“Don’t throw the cognac out the window,” Rinaldi said. “If you can’t
+drink it give it to me.”
+
+“Go something yourself,” I said. I was glad to see Rinaldi again. He had
+spent two years teasing me and I had always liked it. We understood each
+other very well.
+
+“Are you married?” he asked from the bed. I was standing against the
+wall by the window.
+
+“Not yet.”
+
+“Are you in love?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“With that English girl?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Poor baby. Is she good to you?”
+
+“Of course.”
+
+“I mean is she good to you practically speaking?”
+
+“Shut up.”
+
+“I will. You will see I am a man of extreme delicacy. Does she——?”
+
+“Rinin,” I said. “Please shut up. If you want to be my friend, shut up.”
+
+“I don’t _want_ to be your friend, baby. I _am_ your friend.”
+
+“Then shut up.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+I went over to the bed and sat down beside Rinaldi. He was holding his
+glass and looking at the floor.
+
+“You see how it is, Rinin?”
+
+“Oh, yes. All my life I encounter sacred subjects. But very few with
+you. I suppose you must have them too.” He looked at the floor.
+
+“You haven’t any?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Not any?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“I can say this about your mother and that about your sister?”
+
+“And that about _your sister_,” Rinaldi said swiftly. We both laughed.
+
+“The old superman,” I said.
+
+“I am jealous maybe,” Rinaldi said.
+
+“No, you’re not.”
+
+“I don’t mean like that. I mean something else. Have you any married
+friends?”
+
+“Yes,” I said.
+
+“I haven’t,” Rinaldi said. “Not if they love each other.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“They don’t like me.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“I am the snake. I am the snake of reason.”
+
+“You’re getting it mixed. The apple was reason.”
+
+“No, it was the snake.” He was more cheerful.
+
+“You are better when you don’t think so deeply,” I said.
+
+“I love you, baby,” he said. “You puncture me when I become a great
+Italian thinker. But I know many things I can’t say. I know more than
+you.”
+
+“Yes. You do.”
+
+“But you will have a better time. Even with remorse you will have a
+better time.”
+
+“I don’t think so.”
+
+“Oh, yes. That is true. Already I am only happy when I am working.” He
+looked at the floor again.
+
+“You’ll get over that.”
+
+“No. I only like two other things; one is bad for my work and the other
+is over in half an hour or fifteen minutes. Sometimes less.”
+
+“Sometimes a good deal less.”
+
+“Perhaps I have improved, baby. You do not know. But there are only the
+two things and my work.”
+
+“You’ll get other things.”
+
+“No. We never get anything. We are born with all we have and we never
+learn. We never get anything new. We all start complete. You should be
+glad not to be a Latin.”
+
+“There’s no such thing as a Latin. That is ‘Latin’ thinking. You are so
+proud of your defects.” Rinaldi looked up and laughed.
+
+“We’ll stop, baby. I am tired from thinking so much.” He had looked
+tired when he came in. “It’s nearly time to eat. I’m glad you’re back.
+You are my best friend and my war brother.”
+
+“When do the war brothers eat?” I asked.
+
+“Right away. We’ll drink once more for your liver’s sake.”
+
+“Like Saint Paul.”
+
+“You are inaccurate. That was wine and the stomach. Take a little wine
+for your stomach’s sake.”
+
+“Whatever you have in the bottle,” I said. “For any sake you mention.”
+
+“To your girl,” Rinaldi said. He held out his glass.
+
+“All right.”
+
+“I’ll never say a dirty thing about her.”
+
+“Don’t strain yourself.”
+
+He drank off the cognac. “I am pure,” he said. “I am like you, baby. I
+will get an English girl too. As a matter of fact I knew your girl first
+but she was a little tall for me. A tall girl for a sister,” he quoted.
+
+“You have a lovely pure mind,” I said.
+
+“Haven’t I? That’s why they call me Rinaldo Purissimo.”
+
+“Rinaldo Sporchissimo.”
+
+“Come on, baby, we’ll go down to eat while my mind is still pure.”
+
+I washed, combed my hair and we went down the stairs. Rinaldi was a
+little drunk. In the room where we ate, the meal was not quite ready.
+
+“I’ll go get the bottle,” Rinaldi said. He went off up the stairs. I sat
+at the table and he came back with the bottle and poured us each a half
+tumbler of cognac.
+
+“Too much,” I said and held up the glass and sighted at the lamp on the
+table.
+
+“Not for an empty stomach. It is a wonderful thing. It burns out the
+stomach completely. Nothing is worse for you.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+“Self-destruction day by day,” Rinaldi said. “It ruins the stomach and
+makes the hand shake. Just the thing for a surgeon.”
+
+“You recommend it?”
+
+“Heartily. I use no other. Drink it down, baby, and look forward to
+being sick.”
+
+I drank half the glass. In the hall I could hear the orderly calling.
+“Soup! Soup is ready!”
+
+The major came in, nodded to us and sat down. He seemed very small at
+table.
+
+“Is this all we are?” he asked. The orderly put the soup bowl down and
+he ladled out a plate full.
+
+“We are all,” Rinaldi said. “Unless the priest comes. If he knew
+Federico was here he would be here.”
+
+“Where is he?” I asked.
+
+“He’s at 307,” the major said. He was busy with his soup. He wiped his
+mouth, wiping his upturned gray mustache carefully. “He will come I
+think. I called them and left word to tell him you were here.”
+
+“I miss the noise of the mess,” I said.
+
+“Yes, it’s quiet,” the major said.
+
+“I will be noisy,” said Rinaldi.
+
+“Drink some wine, Enrico,” said the major. He filled my glass. The
+spaghetti came in and we were all busy. We were finishing the spaghetti
+when the priest came in. He was the same as ever, small and brown and
+compact looking. I stood up and we shook hands. He put his hand on my
+shoulder.
+
+“I came as soon as I heard,” he said.
+
+“Sit down,” the major said. “You’re late.”
+
+“Good-evening, priest,” Rinaldi said, using the English word. They had
+taken that up from the priest-baiting captain, who spoke a little
+English. “Good-evening, Rinaldo,” the priest said. The orderly brought
+him soup but he said he would start with the spaghetti.
+
+“How are you?” he asked me.
+
+“Fine,” I said. “How have things been?”
+
+“Drink some wine, priest,” Rinaldi said. “Take a little wine for your
+stomach’s sake. That’s Saint Paul, you know.”
+
+“Yes I know,” said the priest politely. Rinaldi filled his glass.
+
+“That Saint Paul,” said Rinaldi. “He’s the one who makes all the
+trouble.” The priest looked at me and smiled. I could see that the
+baiting did not touch him now.
+
+“That Saint Paul,” Rinaldi said. “He was a rounder and a chaser and then
+when he was no longer hot he said it was no good. When he was finished
+he made the rules for us who are still hot. Isn’t it true, Federico?”
+
+The major smiled. We were eating meat stew now.
+
+“I never discuss a Saint after dark,” I said. The priest looked up from
+the stew and smiled at me.
+
+“There he is, gone over with the priest,” Rinaldi said. “Where are all
+the good old priest-baiters? Where is Cavalcanti? Where is Brundi? Where
+is Cesare? Do I have to bait this priest alone without support?”
+
+“He is a good priest,” said the major.
+
+“He is a good priest,” said Rinaldi. “But still a priest. I try to make
+the mess like the old days. I want to make Federico happy. To hell with
+you, priest!”
+
+I saw the major look at him and notice that he was drunk. His thin face
+was white. The line of his hair was very black against the white of his
+forehead.
+
+“It’s all right, Rinaldo,” said the priest. “It’s all right.”
+
+“To hell with you,” said Rinaldi. “To hell with the whole damn
+business.” He sat back in his chair.
+
+“He’s been under a strain and he’s tired,” the major said to me. He
+finished his meat and wiped up the gravy with a piece of bread.
+
+“I don’t give a damn,” Rinaldi said to the table. “To hell with the
+whole business.” He looked defiantly around the table, his eyes flat,
+his face pale.
+
+“All right,” I said. “To hell with the whole damn business.”
+
+“No, no,” said Rinaldi. “You can’t do it. You can’t do it. I say you
+can’t do it. You’re dry and you’re empty and there’s nothing else.
+There’s nothing else I tell you. Not a damned thing. I know, when I stop
+working.”
+
+The priest shook his head. The orderly took away the stew dish.
+
+“What are you eating meat for?” Rinaldi turned to the priest. “Don’ you
+know it’s Friday?”
+
+“It’s Thursday,” the priest said.
+
+“It’s a lie. It’s Friday. You’re eating the body of our Lord. It’s
+God-meat. I know. It’s dead Austrian. That’s what you’re eating.”
+
+“The white meat is from officers,” I said, completing the old joke.
+
+Rinaldi laughed. He filled his glass.
+
+“Don’t mind me,” he said. “I’m just a little crazy.”
+
+“You ought to have a leave,” the priest said.
+
+The major shook his head at him. Rinaldi looked at the priest.
+
+“You think I ought to have a leave?”
+
+The major shook his head at the priest. Rinaldi was looking at the
+priest.
+
+“Just as you like,” the priest said. “Not if you don’t want.”
+
+“To hell with you,” Rinaldi said. “They try to get rid of me. Every
+night they try to get rid of me. I fight them off. What if I have it.
+Everybody has it. The whole world’s got it. First,” he went on, assuming
+the manner of a lecturer, “it’s a little pimple. Then we notice a rash
+between the shoulders. Then we notice nothing at all. We put our faith
+in mercury.”
+
+“Or salvarsan,” the major interrupted quietly.
+
+“A mercurial product,” Rinaldi said. He acted very elated now. “I know
+something worth two of that. Good old priest,” he said. “You’ll never
+get it. Baby will get it. It’s an industrial accident. It’s a simple
+industrial accident.”
+
+The orderly brought in the sweet and coffee. The dessert was a sort of
+black bread pudding with hard sauce. The lamp was smoking; the black
+smoke going close up inside the chimney.
+
+“Bring two candles and take away the lamp,” the major said. The orderly
+brought two lighted candles each in a saucer, and took out the lamp
+blowing it out. Rinaldi was quiet now. He seemed all right. We talked
+and after the coffee we all went out into the hall.
+
+“You want to talk to the priest. I have to go in the town,” Rinaldi
+said. “Good-night, priest.”
+
+“Good-night, Rinaldo,” the priest said.
+
+“I’ll see you Fredi,” Rinaldi said.
+
+“Yes,” I said. “Come in early.” He made a face and went out the door.
+The major was standing with us. “He’s very tired and overworked,” he
+said. “He thinks too he has syphilis. I don’t believe it but he may
+have. He is treating himself for it. Good-night. You will leave before
+daylight, Enrico?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Good-by then,” he said. “Good luck. Peduzzi will wake you and go with
+you.”
+
+“Good-by, Signor Maggiore.”
+
+“Good-by. They talk about an Austrian offensive but I don’t believe it.
+I hope not. But anyway it won’t be here. Gino will tell you everything.
+The telephone works well now.”
+
+“I’ll call regularly.”
+
+“Please do. Good-night. Don’t let Rinaldi drink so much brandy.”
+
+“I’ll try not to.”
+
+“Good-night, priest.”
+
+“Good-night, Signor Maggiore.”
+
+He went off into his office.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXVI
+
+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 to-night.”
+
+“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. Many
+people have realized the war this summer. Officers whom I thought could
+never realize it realize it now.”
+
+“What will happen?” I stroked the blanket with my hand.
+
+“I do not know but I do not think it can go on much longer.”
+
+“What will happen?”
+
+“They will stop fighting.”
+
+“Who?”
+
+“Both sides.”
+
+“I hope so,” I said.
+
+“You don’t believe it?”
+
+“I don’t believe both sides will stop fighting at once.”
+
+“I suppose not. It is too much to expect. But when I see the changes in
+men I do not think it can go on.”
+
+“Who won the fighting this summer?”
+
+“No one.”
+
+“The Austrians won,” I said. “They kept them from taking San Gabriele.
+They’ve won. They won’t stop fighting.”
+
+“If they feel as we feel they may stop. They have gone through the same
+thing.”
+
+“No one ever stopped when they were winning.”
+
+“You discourage me.”
+
+“I can only say what I think.”
+
+“Then you think it will go on and on? Nothing will ever happen?”
+
+“I don’t know. I only think the Austrians will not stop when they have
+won a victory. It is in defeat that we become Christian.”
+
+“The Austrians are Christians—except for the Bosnians.”
+
+“I don’t mean technically Christian. I mean like Our Lord.”
+
+He said nothing.
+
+“We are all gentler now because we are beaten. How would Our Lord have
+been if Peter had rescued him in the Garden?”
+
+“He would have been just the same.”
+
+“I don’t think so,” I said.
+
+“You discourage me,” he said. “I believe and I pray that something will
+happen. I have felt it very close.”
+
+“Something may happen,” I said. “But it will happen only to us. If they
+felt the way we do, it would be all right. But they have beaten us. They
+feel another way.”
+
+“Many of the soldiers have always felt this way. It is not because they
+were beaten.”
+
+“They were beaten to start with. They were beaten when they took them
+from their farms and put them in the army. That is why the peasant has
+wisdom, because he is defeated from the start. Put him in power and see
+how wise he is.”
+
+He did not say anything. He was thinking.
+
+“Now I am depressed myself,” I said. “That’s why I never think about
+these things. I never think and yet when I begin to talk I say the
+things I have found out in my mind without thinking.”
+
+“I had hoped for something.”
+
+“Defeat?”
+
+“No. Something more.”
+
+“There isn’t anything more. Except victory. It may be worse.”
+
+“I hoped for a long time for victory.”
+
+“Me too.”
+
+“Now I don’t know.”
+
+“It has to be one or the other.”
+
+“I don’t believe in victory any more.”
+
+“I don’t. But I don’t believe in defeat. Though it may be better.”
+
+“What do you believe in?”
+
+“In sleep,” I said. He stood up.
+
+“I am very sorry to have stayed so long. But I like so to talk with
+you.”
+
+“It is very nice to talk again. I said that about sleeping, meaning
+nothing.”
+
+We stood up and shook hands in the dark.
+
+“I sleep at 307 now,” he said.
+
+“I go out on post early to-morrow.”
+
+“I’ll see you when you come back.”
+
+“We’ll have a walk and talk together.” I walked with him to the door.
+
+“Don’t go down,” he said. “It is very nice that you are back. Though not
+so nice for you.” He put his hand on my shoulder.
+
+“It’s all right for me,” I said. “Good-night.”
+
+“Good-night. Ciaou!”
+
+“Ciaou!” I said. I was deadly sleepy.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVII
+
+I woke when Rinaldi came in but he did not talk and I went back to sleep
+again. In the morning I was dressed and gone before it was light.
+Rinaldi did not wake when I left.
+
+I had not seen the Bainsizza before and it was strange to go up the
+slope where the Austrians had been, beyond the place on the river where
+I had been wounded. There was a steep new road and many trucks. Beyond,
+the road flattened out and I saw woods and steep hills in the mist.
+There were woods that had been taken quickly and not smashed. Then
+beyond where the road was not protected by the hills it was screened by
+matting on the sides and over the top. The road ended in a wrecked
+village. The lines were up beyond. There was much artillery around. The
+houses were badly smashed but things were very well organized and there
+were signboards everywhere. We found Gino and he got us some coffee and
+later I went with him and met various people and saw the posts. Gino
+said the British cars were working further down the Bainsizza at Ravne.
+He had great admiration for the British. There was still a certain
+amount of shelling, he said, but not many wounded. There would be many
+sick now the rains had started. The Austrians were supposed to attack
+but he did not believe it. We were supposed to attack too, but they had
+not brought up any new troops so he thought that was off too. Food was
+scarce and he would be glad to get a full meal in Gorizia. What kind of
+supper had I had? I told him and he said that would be wonderful. He was
+especially impressed by the _dolce_. I did not describe it in detail,
+only said it was a _dolce_, and I think he believed it was something
+more elaborate than bread pudding.
+
+Did I know where he was going to go? I said I didn’t but that some of
+the other cars were at Caporetto. He hoped he would go up that way. It
+was a nice little place and he liked the high mountain hauling up
+beyond. He was a nice boy and every one seemed to like him. He said
+where it really had been hell was at San Gabriele and the attack beyond
+Lom that had gone bad. He said the Austrians had a great amount of
+artillery in the woods along Ternova ridge beyond and above us, and
+shelled the roads badly at night. There was a battery of naval guns that
+had gotten on his nerves. I would recognize them because of their flat
+trajectory. You heard the report and then the shriek commenced almost
+instantly. They usually fired two guns at once, one right after the
+other, and the fragments from the burst were enormous. He showed me one,
+a smoothly jagged piece of metal over a foot long. It looked like
+babbiting metal.
+
+“I don’t suppose they are so effective,” Gino said. “But they scare me.
+They all sound as though they came directly for you. There is the boom,
+then instantly the shriek and burst. What’s the use of not being wounded
+if they scare you to death?”
+
+He said there were Croats in the lines opposite us now and some Magyars.
+Our troops were still in the attacking positions. There was no wire to
+speak of and no place to fall back to if there should be an Austrian
+attack. There were fine positions for defense along the low mountains
+that came up out of the plateau but nothing had been done about
+organizing them for defense. What did I think about the Bainsizza
+anyway?
+
+I had expected it to be flatter, more like a plateau. I had not realized
+it was so broken up.
+
+“Alto piano,” Gino said, “but no piano.”
+
+We went back to the cellar of the house where he lived. I said I thought
+a ridge that flattened out on top and had a little depth would be easier
+and more practical to hold than a succession of small mountains. It was
+no harder to attack up a mountain than on the level, I argued. “That
+depends on the mountains,” he said. “Look at San Gabriele.”
+
+“Yes,” I said, “but where they had trouble was at the top where it was
+flat. They got up to the top easy enough.”
+
+“Not so easy,” he said.
+
+“Yes,” I said, “but that was a special case because it was a fortress
+rather than a mountain, anyway. The Austrians had been fortifying it for
+years.” I meant tactically speaking in a war where there was some
+movement a succession of mountains were nothing to hold as a line
+because it was too easy to turn them. You should have possible mobility
+and a mountain is not very mobile. Also, people always over-shoot down
+hill. If the flank were turned, the best men would be left on the
+highest mountains. I did not believe in a war in mountains. I had
+thought about it a lot, I said. You pinched off one mountain and they
+pinched off another but when something really started every one had to
+get down off the mountains.
+
+What were you going to do if you had a mountain frontier? he asked.
+
+I had not worked that out yet, I said, and we both laughed. “But,” I
+said, “in the old days the Austrians were always whipped in the
+quadrilateral around Verona. They let them come down onto the plain and
+whipped them there.”
+
+“Yes,” said Gino. “But those were Frenchmen and you can work out
+military problems clearly when you are fighting in somebody else’s
+country.”
+
+“Yes,” I agreed, “when it is your own country you cannot use it so
+scientifically.”
+
+“The Russians did, to trap Napoleon.”
+
+“Yes, but they had plenty of country. If you tried to retreat to trap
+Napoleon in Italy you would find yourself in Brindisi.”
+
+“A terrible place,” said Gino. “Have you ever been there?”
+
+“Not to stay.”
+
+“I am a patriot,” Gino said. “But I cannot love Brindisi or Taranto.”
+
+“Do you love the Bainsizza?” I asked.
+
+“The soil is sacred,” he said. “But I wish it grew more potatoes. You
+know when we came here we found fields of potatoes the Austrians had
+planted.”
+
+“Has the food really been short?”
+
+“I myself have never had enough to eat but I am a big eater and I have
+not starved. The mess is average. The regiments in the line get pretty
+good food but those in support don’t get so much. Something is wrong
+somewhere. There should be plenty of food.”
+
+“The dogfish are selling it somewhere else.”
+
+“Yes, they give the battalions in the front line as much as they can but
+the ones in back are very short. They have eaten all the Austrians’
+potatoes and chestnuts from the woods. They ought to feed them better.
+We are big eaters. I am sure there is plenty of food. It is very bad for
+the soldiers to be short of food. Have you ever noticed the difference
+it makes in the way you think?”
+
+“Yes,” I said. “It can’t win a war but it can lose one.”
+
+“We won’t talk about losing. There is enough talk about losing. What has
+been done this summer cannot have been done in vain.”
+
+I did not say anything. I was always embarrassed by the words sacred,
+glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain. We had heard them,
+sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the
+shouted words came through, and had read them, on proclamations that
+were slapped up by billposters over other proclamations, now for a long
+time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious
+had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if
+nothing was done with the meat except to bury it. There were many words
+that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places
+had dignity. Certain numbers were the same way and certain dates and
+these with the names of the places were all you could say and have them
+mean anything. Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow
+were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of
+roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates. Gino
+was a patriot, so he said things that separated us sometimes, but he was
+also a fine boy and I understood his being a patriot. He was born one.
+He left with Peduzzi in the car to go back to Gorizia.
+
+It stormed all that day. The wind drove down the rain and everywhere
+there was standing water and mud. The plaster of the broken houses was
+gray and wet. Late in the afternoon the rain stopped and from out number
+two post I saw the bare wet autumn country with clouds over the tops of
+the hills and the straw screening over the roads wet and dripping. The
+sun came out once before it went down and shone on the bare woods beyond
+the ridge. There were many Austrian guns in the woods on that ridge but
+only a few fired. I watched the sudden round puffs of shrapnel smoke in
+the sky above a broken farmhouse near where the line was; soft puffs
+with a yellow white flash in the centre. You saw the flash, then heard
+the crack, then saw the smoke ball distort and thin in the wind. There
+were many iron shrapnel balls in the rubble of the houses and on the
+road beside the broken house where the post was, but they did not shell
+near the post that afternoon. We loaded two cars and drove down the road
+that was screened with wet mats and the last of the sun came through in
+the breaks between the strips of mattings. Before we were out on the
+clear road behind the hill the sun was down. We went on down the clear
+road and as it turned a corner into the open and went into the square
+arched tunnel of matting the rain started again.
+
+The wind rose in the night and at three o’clock in the morning with the
+rain coming in sheets there was a bombardment and the Croatians came
+over across the mountain meadows and through patches of woods and into
+the front line. They fought in the dark in the rain and a counter-attack
+of scared men from the second line drove them back. There was much
+shelling and many rockets in the rain and machine-gun and rifle fire all
+along the line. They did not come again and it was quieter and between
+the gusts of wind and rain we could hear the sound of a great
+bombardment far to the north.
+
+The wounded were coming into the post, some were carried on stretchers,
+some walking and some were brought on the backs of men that came across
+the field. They were wet to the skin and all were scared. We filled two
+cars with stretcher cases as they came up from the cellar of the post
+and as I shut the door of the second car and fastened it I felt the rain
+on my face turn to snow. The flakes were coming heavy and fast in the
+rain.
+
+When daylight came the storm was still blowing but the snow had stopped.
+It had melted as it fell on the wet ground and now it was raining again.
+There was another attack just after daylight but it was unsuccessful. We
+expected an attack all day but it did not come until the sun was going
+down. The bombardment started to the south below the long wooded ridge
+where the Austrian guns were concentrated. We expected a bombardment but
+it did not come. It was getting dark. Guns were firing from the field
+behind the village and the shells, going away, had a comfortable sound.
+
+We heard that the attack to the south had been unsuccessful. They did
+not attack that night but we heard that they had broken through to the
+north. In the night word came that we were to prepare to retreat. The
+captain at the post told me this. He had it from the Brigade. A little
+while later he came from the telephone and said it was a lie. The
+Brigade had received orders that the line of the Bainsizza should be
+held no matter what happened. I asked about the break through and he
+said that he had heard at the Brigade that the Austrians had broken
+through the twenty-seventh army corps up toward Caporetto. There had
+been a great battle in the north all day.
+
+“If those bastards let them through we are cooked,” he said.
+
+“It’s Germans that are attacking,” one of the medical officers said. The
+word Germans was something to be frightened of. We did not want to have
+anything to do with the Germans.
+
+“There are fifteen divisions of Germans,” the medical officer said.
+“They have broken through and we will be cut off.”
+
+“At the Brigade, they say this line is to be held. They say they have
+not broken through badly and that we will hold a line across the
+mountains from Monte Maggiore.”
+
+“Where do they hear this?”
+
+“From the Division.”
+
+“The word that we were to retreat came from the Division.”
+
+“We work under the Army Corps,” I said. “But here I work under you.
+Naturally when you tell me to go I will go. But get the orders
+straight.”
+
+“The orders are that we stay here. You clear the wounded from here to
+the clearing station.”
+
+“Sometimes we clear from the clearing station to the field hospitals
+too,” I said. “Tell me, I have never seen a retreat—if there is a
+retreat how are all the wounded evacuated?”
+
+“They are not. They take as many as they can and leave the rest.”
+
+“What will I take in the cars?”
+
+“Hospital equipment.”
+
+“All right,” I said.
+
+The next night the retreat started. We heard that Germans and Austrians
+had broken through in the north and were coming down the mountain
+valleys toward Cividale and Udine. The retreat was orderly, wet and
+sullen. In the night, going slowly along the crowded roads we passed
+troops marching under the rain, guns, horses pulling wagons, mules,
+motor trucks, all moving away from the front. There was no more disorder
+than in an advance.
+
+That night we helped empty the field hospitals that had been set up in
+the least ruined villages of the plateau, taking the wounded down to
+Plava on the river-bed: and the next day hauled all day in the rain to
+evacuate the hospitals and clearing station at Plava. It rained steadily
+and the army of the Bainsizza moved down off the plateau in the October
+rain and across the river where the great victories had commenced in the
+spring of that year. We came into Gorizia in the middle of the next day.
+The rain had stopped and the town was nearly empty. As we came up the
+street they were loading the girls from the soldiers’ whorehouse into a
+truck. There were seven girls and they had on their hats and coats and
+carried small suitcases. Two of them were crying. Of the others one
+smiled at us and put out her tongue and fluttered it up and down. She
+had thick full lips and black eyes.
+
+I stopped the car and went over and spoke to the matron. The girls from
+the officers’ house had left early that morning, she said. Where were
+they going? To Conegliano, she said. The truck started. The girl with
+thick lips put out her tongue again at us. The matron waved. The two
+girls kept on crying. The others looked interestedly out at the town. I
+got back in the car.
+
+“We ought to go with them,” Bonello said. “That would be a good trip.”
+
+“We’ll have a good trip,” I said.
+
+“We’ll have a hell of a trip.”
+
+“That’s what I mean,” I said. We came up the drive to the villa.
+
+“I’d like to be there when some of those tough babies climb in and try
+and hop them.”
+
+“You think they will?”
+
+“Sure. Everybody in the Second Army knows that matron.”
+
+We were outside the villa.
+
+“They call her the Mother Superior,” Bonello said. “The girls are new
+but everybody knows her. They must have brought them up just before the
+retreat.”
+
+“They’ll have a time.”
+
+“I’ll say they’ll have a time. I’d like to have a crack at them for
+nothing. They charge too much at that house anyway. The government gyps
+us.”
+
+“Take the car out and have the mechanics go over it,” I said. “Change
+the oil and check the differential. Fill it up and then get some sleep.”
+
+“Yes, Signor Tenente.”
+
+The villa was empty. Rinaldi was gone with the hospital. The major was
+gone taking hospital personnel in the staff car. There was a note on the
+window for me to fill the cars with the material piled in the hall and
+to proceed to Pordenone. The mechanics were gone already. I went out
+back to the garage. The other two cars came in while I was there and
+their drivers got down. It was starting to rain again.
+
+“I’m so —— sleepy I went to sleep three times coming here from Plava,”
+Piani said. “What are we going to do, Tenente?”
+
+“We’ll change the oil, grease them, fill them up, then take them around
+in front and load up the junk they’ve left.”
+
+“Then do we start?”
+
+“No, we’ll sleep for three hours.”
+
+“Christ I’m glad to sleep,” Bonello said. “I couldn’t keep awake
+driving.”
+
+“How’s your car, Aymo?” I asked.
+
+“It’s all right.”
+
+“Get me a monkey suit and I’ll help you with the oil.”
+
+“Don’t you do that, Tenente,” Aymo said. “It’s nothing to do. You go and
+pack your things.”
+
+“My things are all packed,” I said. “I’ll go and carry out the stuff
+that they left for us. Bring the cars around as soon as they’re ready.”
+
+They brought the cars around to the front of the villa and we loaded
+them with the hospital equipment which was piled in the hallway. When it
+was all in, the three cars stood in line down the driveway under the
+trees in the rain. We went inside.
+
+“Make a fire in the kitchen and dry your things,” I said.
+
+“I don’t care about dry clothes,” Piani said. “I want to sleep.”
+
+“I’m going to sleep on the major’s bed,” Bonello said. “I’m going to
+sleep where the old man corks off.”
+
+“I don’t care where I sleep,” Piani said.
+
+“There are two beds in here.” I opened the door.
+
+“I never knew what was in that room,” Bonello said.
+
+“That was old fish-face’s room,” Piani said.
+
+“You two sleep in there,” I said. “I’ll wake you.”
+
+“The Austrians will wake us if you sleep too long, Tenente,” Bonello
+said.
+
+“I won’t oversleep,” I said. “Where’s Aymo?”
+
+“He went out in the kitchen.”
+
+“Get to sleep,” I said.
+
+“I’ll sleep,” Piani said. “I’ve been asleep sitting up all day. The
+whole top of my head kept coming down over my eyes.”
+
+“Take your boots off,” Bonello said. “That’s old fish-face’s bed.”
+
+“Fish-face is nothing to me.” Piani lay on the bed, his muddy boots
+straight out, his head on his arm. I went out to the kitchen. Aymo had a
+fire in the stove and a kettle of water on.
+
+“I thought I’d start some _pasta asciutta_,” he said. “We’ll be hungry
+when we wake up.”
+
+“Aren’t you sleepy, Bartolomeo?”
+
+“Not so sleepy. When the water boils I’ll leave it. The fire will go
+down.”
+
+“You’d better get some sleep,” I said. “We can eat cheese and monkey
+meat.”
+
+“This is better,” he said. “Something hot will be good for those two
+anarchists. You go to sleep, Tenente.”
+
+“There’s a bed in the major’s room.”
+
+“You sleep there.”
+
+“No, I’m going up to my old room. Do you want a drink, Bartolomeo?”
+
+“When we go, Tenente. Now it wouldn’t do me any good.”
+
+“If you wake in three hours and I haven’t called you, wake me, will
+you?”
+
+“I haven’t any watch, Tenente.”
+
+“There’s a clock on the wall in the major’s room.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+I went out then through the dining-room and the hall and up the marble
+stairs to the room where I had lived with Rinaldi. It was raining
+outside. I went to the window and looked out. It was getting dark and I
+saw the three cars standing in line under the trees. The trees were
+dripping in the rain. It was cold and the drops hung to the branches. I
+went back to Rinaldi’s bed and lay down and let sleep take me.
+
+We ate in the kitchen before we started. Aymo had a basin of spaghetti
+with onions and tinned meat chopped up in it. We sat around the table
+and drank two bottles of the wine that had been left in the cellar of
+the villa. It was dark outside and still raining. Piani sat at the table
+very sleepy.
+
+“I like a retreat better than an advance,” Bonello said. “On a retreat
+we drink barbera.”
+
+“We drink it now. To-morrow maybe we drink rain-water,” Aymo said.
+
+“To-morrow we’ll be in Udine. We’ll drink champagne. That’s where the
+slackers live. Wake up, Piani! We’ll drink champagne to-morrow in
+Udine!”
+
+“I’m awake,” Piani said. He filled his plate with the spaghetti and
+meat. “Couldn’t you find tomato sauce, Barto?”
+
+“There wasn’t any,” Aymo said.
+
+“We’ll drink champagne in Udine,” Bonello said. He filled his glass with
+the clear red barbera.
+
+“We may drink —— before Udine,” Piani said.
+
+“Have you eaten enough, Tenente?” Aymo asked.
+
+“I’ve got plenty. Give me the bottle, Bartolomeo.”
+
+“I have a bottle apiece to take in the cars,” Aymo said.
+
+“Did you sleep at all?”
+
+“I don’t need much sleep. I slept a little.”
+
+“To-morrow we’ll sleep in the king’s bed,” Bonello said. He was feeling
+very good.
+
+“To-morrow maybe we’ll sleep in ——,” Piani said.
+
+“I’ll sleep with the queen,” Bonello said. He looked to see how I took
+the joke.
+
+“You’ll sleep with ——,” Piani said sleepily.
+
+“That’s treason, Tenente,” Bonello said. “Isn’t that treason?”
+
+“Shut up,” I said. “You get too funny with a little wine.” Outside it
+was raining hard. I looked at my watch. It was half-past nine.
+
+“It’s time to roll,” I said and stood up.
+
+“Who are you going to ride with, Tenente?” Bonello asked.
+
+“With Aymo. Then you come. Then Piani. We’ll start out on the road for
+Cormons.”
+
+“I’m afraid I’ll go to sleep,” Piani said.
+
+“All right. I’ll ride with you. Then Bonello. Then Aymo.”
+
+“That’s the best way,” Piani said. “Because I’m so sleepy.”
+
+“I’ll drive and you sleep awhile.”
+
+“No. I can drive just so long as I know somebody will wake me up if I go
+to sleep.”
+
+“I’ll wake you up. Put out the lights, Barto.”
+
+“You might as well leave them,” Bonello said. “We’ve got no more use for
+this place.”
+
+“I have a small locker trunk in my room,” I said. “Will you help take it
+down, Piani?”
+
+“We’ll take it,” Piani said. “Come on, Aldo.” He went off into the hall
+with Bonello. I heard them going upstairs.
+
+“This was a fine place,” Bartolomeo Aymo said. He put two bottles of
+wine and half a cheese into his haversack. “There won’t be a place like
+this again. Where will they retreat to, Tenente?”
+
+“Beyond the Tagliamento, they say. The hospital and the sector are to be
+at Pordenone.”
+
+“This is a better town than Pordenone.”
+
+“I don’t know Pordenone,” I said. “I’ve just been through there.”
+
+“It’s not much of a place,” Aymo said.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+As we moved out through the town it was empty in the rain and the dark
+except for columns of troops and guns that were going through the main
+street. There were many trucks too and some carts going through on other
+streets and converging on the main road. When we were out past the
+tanneries onto the main road the troops, the motor trucks, the
+horse-drawn carts and the guns were in one wide slow-moving column. We
+moved slowly but steadily in the rain, the radiator cap of our car
+almost against the tailboard of a truck that was loaded high, the load
+covered with wet canvas. Then the truck stopped. The whole column was
+stopped. It started again and we went a little farther, then stopped. I
+got out and walked ahead, going between the trucks and carts and under
+the wet necks of the horses. The block was farther ahead. I left the
+road, crossed the ditch on a footboard and walked along the field beyond
+the ditch. I could see the stalled column between the trees in the rain
+as I went forward across from it in the field. I went about a mile. The
+column did not move, although, on the other side beyond the stalled
+vehicles I could see the troops moving. I went back to the cars. This
+block might extend as far as Udine. Piani was asleep over the wheel. I
+climbed up beside him and went to sleep too. Several hours later I heard
+the truck ahead of us grinding into gear. I woke Piani and we started,
+moving a few yards, then stopping, then going on again. It was still
+raining.
+
+The column stalled again in the night and did not start. I got down and
+went back to see Aymo and Bonello. Bonello had two sergeants of
+engineers on the seat of his car with him. They stiffened when I came
+up.
+
+“They were left to do something to a bridge,” Bonello said. “They can’t
+find their unit so I gave them a ride.”
+
+“With the Sir Lieutenant’s permission.”
+
+“With permission,” I said.
+
+“The lieutenant is an American,” Bonello said. “He’ll give anybody a
+ride.”
+
+One of the sergeants smiled. The other asked Bonello if I was an Italian
+from North or South America.
+
+“He’s not an Italian. He’s North American English.”
+
+The sergeants were polite but did not believe it. I left them and went
+back to Aymo. He had two girls on the seat with him and was sitting back
+in the corner and smoking.
+
+“Barto, Barto,” I said. He laughed.
+
+“Talk to them, Tenente,” he said. “I can’t understand them. Hey!” he put
+his hand on the girl’s thigh and squeezed it in a friendly way. The girl
+drew her shawl tight around her and pushed his hand away. “Hey!” he
+said. “Tell the Tenente your name and what you’re doing here.”
+
+The girl looked at me fiercely. The other girl kept her eyes down. The
+girl who looked at me said something in a dialect I could not understand
+a word of. She was plump and dark and looked about sixteen.
+
+“Sorella?” I asked and pointed at the other girl.
+
+She nodded her head and smiled.
+
+“All right,” I said and patted her knee. I felt her stiffen away when I
+touched her. The sister never looked up. She looked perhaps a year
+younger. Aymo put his hand on the elder girl’s thigh and she pushed it
+away. He laughed at her.
+
+“Good man,” he pointed at himself. “Good man,” he pointed at me. “Don’t
+you worry.” The girl looked at him fiercely. The pair of them were like
+two wild birds.
+
+“What does she ride with me for if she doesn’t like me?” Aymo asked.
+“They got right up in the car the minute I motioned to them.” He turned
+to the girl. “Don’t worry,” he said. “No danger of ——,” using the
+vulgar word. “No place for ——.” I could see she understood the word
+and that was all. Her eyes looked at him very scared. She pulled the
+shawl tight. “Car all full,” Aymo said. “No danger of ——. No place for
+——.” Every time he said the word the girl stiffened a little. Then
+sitting stiffly and looking at him she began to cry. I saw her lips
+working and then tears came down her plump cheeks. Her sister, not
+looking up, took her hand and they sat there together. The older one,
+who had been so fierce, began to sob.
+
+“I guess I scared her,” Aymo said. “I didn’t mean to scare her.”
+
+Bartolomeo brought out his knapsack and cut off two pieces of cheese.
+“Here,” he said. “Stop crying.”
+
+The older girl shook her head and still cried, but the younger girl took
+the cheese and commenced to eat. After a while the younger girl gave her
+sister the second piece of cheese and they both ate. The older sister
+still sobbed a little.
+
+“She’ll be all right after a while,” Aymo said.
+
+An idea came to him. “Virgin?” he asked the girl next to him. She nodded
+her head vigorously. “Virgin too?” he pointed to the sister. Both the
+girls nodded their heads and the elder said something in dialect.
+
+“That’s all right,” Bartolomeo said. “That’s all right.”
+
+Both the girls seemed cheered.
+
+I left them sitting together with Aymo sitting back in the corner and
+went back to Piani’s car. The column of vehicles did not move but the
+troops kept passing alongside. It was still raining hard and I thought
+some of the stops in the movement of the column might be from cars with
+wet wiring. More likely they were from horses or men going to sleep.
+Still, traffic could tie up in cities when every one was awake. It was
+the combination of horse and motor vehicles. They did not help each
+other any. The peasants’ carts did not help much either. Those were a
+couple of fine girls with Barto. A retreat was no place for two virgins.
+Real virgins. Probably very religious. If there were no war we would
+probably all be in bed. In bed I lay me down my head. Bed and board.
+Stiff as a board in bed. Catherine was in bed now between two sheets,
+over her and under her. Which side did she sleep on? Maybe she wasn’t
+asleep. Maybe she was lying thinking about me. Blow, blow, ye western
+wind. Well, it blew and it wasn’t the small rain but the big rain down
+that rained. It rained all night. You knew it rained down that rained.
+Look at it. Christ, that my love were in my arms and I in my bed again.
+That my love Catherine. That my sweet love Catherine down might rain.
+Blow her again to me. Well, we were in it. Every one was caught in it
+and the small rain would not quiet it. “Good-night, Catherine,” I said
+out loud. “I hope you sleep well. If it’s too uncomfortable, darling,
+lie on the other side,” I said. “I’ll get you some cold water. In a
+little while it will be morning and then it won’t be so bad. I’m sorry
+he makes you so uncomfortable. Try and go to sleep, sweet.”
+
+I was asleep all the time, she said. You’ve been talking in your sleep.
+Are you all right?
+
+Are you really there?
+
+Of course I’m here. I wouldn’t go way. This doesn’t make any difference
+between us.
+
+You’re so lovely and sweet. You wouldn’t go away in the night, would
+you?
+
+Of course I wouldn’t go away. I’m always here. I come whenever you want
+me.
+
+“——,” Piani said. “They’ve started again.”
+
+“I was dopey,” I said. I looked at my watch. It was three o’clock in the
+morning. I reached back behind the seat for a bottle of the barbera.
+
+“You talked out loud,” Piani said.
+
+“I was having a dream in English,” I said.
+
+The rain was slacking and we were moving along. Before daylight we were
+stalled again and when it was light we were at a little rise in the
+ground and I saw the road of the retreat stretched out far ahead,
+everything stationary except for the infantry filtering through. We
+started to move again but seeing the rate of progress in the daylight, I
+knew we were going to have to get off that main road some way and go
+across country if we ever hoped to reach Udine.
+
+In the night many peasants had joined the column from the roads of the
+country and in the column there were carts loaded with household goods;
+there were mirrors projecting up between mattresses, and chickens and
+ducks tied to carts. There was a sewing-machine on the cart ahead of us
+in the rain. They had saved the most valuable things. On some carts the
+women sat huddled from the rain and others walked beside the carts
+keeping as close to them as they could. There were dogs now in the
+column, keeping under the wagons as they moved along. The road was
+muddy, the ditches at the side were high with water and beyond the trees
+that lined the road the fields looked too wet and too soggy to try to
+cross. I got down from the car and worked up the road a way, looking for
+a place where I could see ahead to find a side-road we could take across
+country. I knew there were many side-roads but did not want one that
+would lead to nothing. I could not remember them because we had always
+passed them bowling along in the car on the main road and they all
+looked much alike. Now I knew we must find one if we hoped to get
+through. No one knew where the Austrians were nor how things were going
+but I was certain that if the rain should stop and planes come over and
+get to work on that column that it would be all over. All that was
+needed was for a few men to leave their trucks or a few horses be killed
+to tie up completely the movement on the road.
+
+The rain was not falling so heavily now and I thought it might clear. I
+went ahead along the edge of the road and when there was a small road
+that led off to the north between two fields with a hedge of trees on
+both sides, I thought that we had better take it and hurried back to the
+cars. I told Piani to turn off and went back to tell Bonello and Aymo.
+
+“If it leads nowhere we can turn around and cut back in,” I said.
+
+“What about these?” Bonello asked. His two sergeants were beside him on
+the seat. They were unshaven but still military looking in the early
+morning.
+
+“They’ll be good to push,” I said. I went back to Aymo and told him we
+were going to try it across country.
+
+“What about my virgin family?” Aymo asked. The two girls were asleep.
+
+“They won’t be very useful,” I said. “You ought to have some one that
+could push.”
+
+“They could go back in the car,” Aymo said. “There’s room in the car.”
+
+“All right if you want them,” I said. “Pick up somebody with a wide back
+to push.”
+
+“Bersaglieri,” Aymo smiled. “They have the widest backs. They measure
+them. How do you feel, Tenente?”
+
+“Fine. How are you?”
+
+“Fine. But very hungry.”
+
+“There ought to be something up that road and we will stop and eat.”
+
+“How’s your leg, Tenente?”
+
+“Fine,” I said. Standing on the step and looking up ahead I could see
+Piani’s car pulling out onto the little side-road and starting up it,
+his car showing through the hedge of bare branches. Bonello turned off
+and followed him and then Piani worked his way out and we followed the
+two ambulances ahead along the narrow road between hedges. It led to a
+farmhouse. We found Piani and Bonello stopped in the farmyard. The house
+was low and long with a trellis with a grape-vine over the door. There
+was a well in the yard and Piani was getting up water to fill his
+radiator. So much going in low gear had boiled it out. The farmhouse was
+deserted. I looked back down the road, the farmhouse was on a slight
+elevation above the plain, and we could see over the country, and saw
+the road, the hedges, the fields and the line of trees along the main
+road where the retreat was passing. The two sergeants were looking
+through the house. The girls were awake and looking at the courtyard,
+the well and the two big ambulances in front of the farmhouse, with
+three drivers at the well. One of the sergeants came out with a clock in
+his hand.
+
+“Put it back,” I said. He looked at me, went in the house and came back
+without the clock.
+
+“Where’s your partner?” I asked.
+
+“He’s gone to the latrine.” He got up on the seat of the ambulance. He
+was afraid we would leave him.
+
+“What about breakfast, Tenente?” Bonello asked. “We could eat something.
+It wouldn’t take very long.”
+
+“Do you think this road going down on the other side will lead to
+anything?”
+
+“Sure.”
+
+“All right. Let’s eat.” Piani and Bonello went in the house.
+
+“Come on,” Aymo said to the girls. He held his hand to help them down.
+The older sister shook her head. They were not going into any deserted
+house. They looked after us.
+
+“They are difficult,” Aymo said. We went into the farmhouse together. It
+was large and dark, an abandoned feeling. Bonello and Piani were in the
+kitchen.
+
+“There’s not much to eat,” Piani said. “They’ve cleaned it out.”
+
+Bonello sliced a big white cheese on the heavy kitchen table.
+
+“Where was the cheese?”
+
+“In the cellar. Piani found wine too and apples.”
+
+“That’s a good breakfast.”
+
+Piani was taking the wooden cork out of a big wicker-covered wine jug.
+He tipped it and poured a copper pan full.
+
+“It smells all right,” he said. “Find some beakers, Barto.”
+
+The two sergeants came in.
+
+“Have some cheese, sergeants,” Bonello said.
+
+“We should go,” one of the sergeants said, eating his cheese and
+drinking a cup of wine.
+
+“We’ll go. Don’t worry,” Bonello said.
+
+“An army travels on its stomach,” I said.
+
+“What?” asked the sergeant.
+
+“It’s better to eat.”
+
+“Yes. But time is precious.”
+
+“I believe the bastards have eaten already,” Piani said. The sergeants
+looked at him. They hated the lot of us.
+
+“You know the road?” one of them asked me.
+
+“No,” I said. They looked at each other.
+
+“We would do best to start,” the first one said.
+
+“We are starting,” I said. I drank another cup of the red wine. It
+tasted very good after the cheese and apple.
+
+“Bring the cheese,” I said and went out. Bonello came out carrying the
+great jug of wine.
+
+“That’s too big,” I said. He looked at it regretfully.
+
+“I guess it is,” he said. “Give me the canteens to fill.” He filled the
+canteens and some of the wine ran out on the stone paving of the
+courtyard. Then he picked up the wine jug and put it just inside the
+door.
+
+“The Austrians can find it without breaking the door down,” he said.
+
+“We’ll roll,” I said. “Piani and I will go ahead.” The two engineers
+were already on the seat beside Bonello. The girls were eating cheese
+and apples. Aymo was smoking. We started off down the narrow road. I
+looked back at the two cars coming and the farmhouse. It was a fine,
+low, solid stone house and the ironwork of the well was very good. Ahead
+of us the road was narrow and muddy and there was a high hedge on either
+side. Behind, the cars were following closely.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXIX
+
+At noon we were stuck in a muddy road about, as nearly as we could
+figure, ten kilometres from Udine. The rain had stopped during the
+forenoon and three times we had heard planes coming, seen them pass
+overhead, watched them go far to the left and heard them bombing on the
+main highroad. We had worked through a network of secondary roads and
+had taken many roads that were blind, but had always, by backing up and
+finding another road, gotten closer to Udine. Now, Aymo’s car, in
+backing so that we might get out of a blind road, had gotten into the
+soft earth at the side and the wheels, spinning, had dug deeper and
+deeper until the car rested on its differential. The thing to do now was
+to dig out in front of the wheels, put in brush so that the chains could
+grip, and then push until the car was on the road. We were all down on
+the road around the car. The two sergeants looked at the car and
+examined the wheels. Then they started off down the road without a word.
+I went after them.
+
+“Come on,” I said. “Cut some brush.”
+
+“We have to go,” one said.
+
+“Get busy,” I said, “and cut brush.”
+
+“We have to go,” one said. The other said nothing. They were in a hurry
+to start. They would not look at me.
+
+“I order you to come back to the car and cut brush,” I said. The one
+sergeant turned. “We have to go on. In a little while you will be cut
+off. You can’t order us. You’re not our officer.”
+
+“I order you to cut brush,” I said. They turned and started down the
+road.
+
+“Halt,” I said. They kept on down the muddy road, the hedge on either
+side. “I order you to halt,” I called. They went a little faster. I
+opened up my holster, took the pistol, aimed at the one who had talked
+the most, and fired. I missed and they both started to run. I shot three
+times and dropped one. The other went through the hedge and was out of
+sight. I fired at him through the hedge as he ran across the field. The
+pistol clicked empty and I put in another clip. I saw it was too far to
+shoot at the second sergeant. He was far across the field, running, his
+head held low. I commenced to reload the empty clip. Bonello came up.
+
+“Let me go finish him,” he said. I handed him the pistol and he walked
+down to where the sergeant of engineers lay face down across the road.
+Bonello leaned over, put the pistol against the man’s head and pulled
+the trigger. The pistol did not fire.
+
+“You have to cock it,” I said. He cocked it and fired twice. He took
+hold of the sergeant’s legs and pulled him to the side of the road so he
+lay beside the hedge. He came back and handed me the pistol.
+
+“The son of a bitch,” he said. He looked toward the sergeant. “You see
+me shoot him, Tenente?”
+
+“We’ve got to get the brush quickly,” I said. “Did I hit the other one
+at all?”
+
+“I don’t think so,” Aymo said. “He was too far away to hit with a
+pistol.”
+
+“The dirty scum,” Piani said. We were all cutting twigs and branches.
+Everything had been taken out of the car. Bonello was digging out in
+front of the wheels. When we were ready Aymo started the car and put it
+into gear. The wheels spun round throwing brush and mud. Bonello and I
+pushed until we could feel our joints crack. The car would not move.
+
+“Rock her back and forth, Barto,” I said.
+
+He drove the engine in reverse, then forward. The wheels only dug in
+deeper. Then the car was resting on the differential again, and the
+wheels spun freely in the holes they had dug. I straightened up.
+
+“We’ll try her with a rope,” I said.
+
+“I don’t think it’s any use, Tenente. You can’t get a straight pull.”
+
+“We have to try it,” I said. “She won’t come out any other way.”
+
+Piani’s and Bonello’s cars could only move straight ahead down the
+narrow road. We roped both cars together and pulled. The wheels only
+pulled sideways against the ruts.
+
+“It’s no good,” I shouted. “Stop it.”
+
+Piani and Bonello got down from their cars and came back. Aymo got down.
+The girls were up the road about forty yards sitting on a stone wall.
+
+“What do you say, Tenente?” Bonello asked.
+
+“We’ll dig out and try once more with the brush,” I said. I looked down
+the road. It was my fault. I had led them up here. The sun was almost
+out from behind the clouds and the body of the sergeant lay beside the
+hedge.
+
+“We’ll put his coat and cape under,” I said. Bonello went to get them. I
+cut brush and Aymo and Piani dug out in front and between the wheels. I
+cut the cape, then ripped it in two, and laid it under the wheel in the
+mud, then piled brush for the wheels to catch. We were ready to start
+and Aymo got up on the seat and started the car. The wheels spun and we
+pushed and pushed. But it wasn’t any use.
+
+“It’s ——ed,” I said. “Is there anything you want in the car, Barto?”
+
+Aymo climbed up with Bonello, carrying the cheese and two bottles of
+wine and his cape. Bonello, sitting behind the wheel, was looking
+through the pockets of the sergeant’s coat.
+
+“Better throw the coat away,” I said. “What about Barto’s virgins?”
+
+“They can get in the back,” Piani said. “I don’t think we are going
+far.”
+
+I opened the back door of the ambulance.
+
+“Come on,” I said. “Get in.” The two girls climbed in and sat in the
+corner. They seemed to have taken no notice of the shooting. I looked
+back up the road. The sergeant lay in his dirty long-sleeved underwear.
+I got up with Piani and we started. We were going to try to cross the
+field. When the road entered the field I got down and walked ahead. If
+we could get across, there was a road on the other side. We could not
+get across. It was too soft and muddy for the cars. When they were
+finally and completely stalled, the wheels dug in to the hubs, we left
+them in the field and started on foot for Udine.
+
+When we came to the road which led back toward the main highway I
+pointed down it to the two girls.
+
+“Go down there,” I said. “You’ll meet people.” They looked at me. I took
+out my pocket-book and gave them each a ten-lira note. “Go down there,”
+I said, pointing. “Friends! Family!”
+
+They did not understand but they held the money tightly and started down
+the road. They looked back as though they were afraid I might take the
+money back. I watched them go down the road, their shawls close around
+them, looking back apprehensively at us. The three drivers were
+laughing.
+
+“How much will you give me to go in that direction, Tenente?” Bonello
+asked.
+
+“They’re better off in a bunch of people than alone if they catch them,”
+I said.
+
+“Give me two hundred lire and I’ll walk straight back toward Austria,”
+Bonello said.
+
+“They’d take it away from you,” Piani said.
+
+“Maybe the war will be over,” Aymo said. We were going up the road as
+fast as we could. The sun was trying to come through. Beside the road
+were mulberry trees. Through the trees I could see our two big
+moving-vans of cars stuck in the field. Piani looked back too.
+
+“They’ll have to build a road to get them out,” he said.
+
+“I wish to Christ we had bicycles,” Bonello said.
+
+“Do they ride bicycles in America?” Aymo asked.
+
+“They used to.”
+
+“Here it is a great thing,” Aymo said. “A bicycle is a splendid thing.”
+
+“I wish to Christ we had bicycles,” Bonello said. “I’m no walker.”
+
+“Is that firing?” I asked. I thought I could hear firing a long way
+away.
+
+“I don’t know,” Aymo said. He listened.
+
+“I think so,” I said.
+
+“The first thing we will see will be the cavalry,” Piani said.
+
+“I don’t think they’ve got any cavalry.”
+
+“I hope to Christ not,” Bonello said. “I don’t want to be stuck on a
+lance by any —— cavalry.”
+
+“You certainly shot that sergeant, Tenente,” Piani said. We were walking
+fast.
+
+“I killed him,” Bonello said. “I never killed anybody in this war, and
+all my life I’ve wanted to kill a sergeant.”
+
+“You killed him on the sit all right,” Piani said. “He wasn’t flying
+very fast when you killed him.”
+
+“Never mind. That’s one thing I can always remember. I killed that ——
+of a sergeant.”
+
+“What will you say in confession?” Aymo asked.
+
+“I’ll say, ‘Bless me, father, I killed a sergeant.’” They all laughed.
+
+“He’s an anarchist,” Piani said. “He doesn’t go to church.”
+
+“Piani’s an anarchist too,” Bonello said.
+
+“Are you really anarchists?” I asked.
+
+“No, Tenente. We’re socialists. We come from Imola.”
+
+“Haven’t you ever been there?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“By Christ it’s a fine place, Tenente. You come there after the war and
+we’ll show you something.”
+
+“Are you all socialists?”
+
+“Everybody.”
+
+“Is it a fine town?”
+
+“Wonderful. You never saw a town like that.”
+
+“How did you get to be socialists?”
+
+“We’re all socialists. Everybody is a socialist. We’ve always been
+socialists.”
+
+“You come, Tenente. We’ll make you a socialist too.”
+
+Ahead the road turned off to the left and there was a little hill and,
+beyond a stone wall, an apple orchard. As the road went uphill they
+ceased talking. We walked along together all going fast against time.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXX
+
+Later we were on a road that led to a river. There was a long line of
+abandoned trucks and carts on the road leading up to the bridge. No one
+was in sight. The river was high and the bridge had been blown up in the
+centre; the stone arch was fallen into the river and the brown water was
+going over it. We went on up the bank looking for a place to cross. Up
+ahead I knew there was a railway bridge and I thought we might be able
+to get across there. The path was wet and muddy. We did not see any
+troops; only abandoned trucks and stores. Along the river bank there was
+nothing and no one but the wet brush and muddy ground. We went up to the
+bank and finally we saw the railway bridge.
+
+“What a beautiful bridge,” Aymo said. It was a long plain iron bridge
+across what was usually a dry river-bed.
+
+“We better hurry and get across before they blow it up,” I said.
+
+“There’s nobody to blow it up,” Piani said. “They’re all gone.”
+
+“It’s probably mined,” Bonello said. “You cross first, Tenente.”
+
+“Listen to the anarchist,” Aymo said. “Make him go first.”
+
+“I’ll go,” I said. “It won’t be mined to blow up with one man.”
+
+“You see,” Piani said. “That is brains. Why haven’t you brains,
+anarchist?”
+
+“If I had brains I wouldn’t be here,” Bonello said.
+
+“That’s pretty good, Tenente,” Aymo said.
+
+“That’s pretty good,” I said. We were close to the bridge now. The sky
+had clouded over again and it was raining a little. The bridge looked
+long and solid. We climbed up the embankment.
+
+“Come one at a time,” I said and started across the bridge. I watched
+the ties and the rails for any tripwires or signs of explosive but I saw
+nothing. Down below the gaps in the ties the river ran muddy and fast.
+Ahead across the wet countryside I could see Udine in the rain. Across
+the bridge I looked back. Just up the river was another bridge. As I
+watched, a yellow mud-colored motor car crossed it. The sides of the
+bridge were high and the body of the car, once on, was out of sight. But
+I saw the heads of the driver, the man on the seat with him, and the two
+men on the rear seat. They all wore German helmets. Then the car was
+over the bridge and out of sight behind the trees and the abandoned
+vehicles on the road. I waved to Aymo who was crossing and to the others
+to come on. I climbed down and crouched beside the railway embankment.
+Aymo came down with me.
+
+“Did you see the car?” I asked.
+
+“No. We were watching you.”
+
+“A German staff car crossed on the upper bridge.”
+
+“A staff car?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Holy Mary.”
+
+The others came and we all crouched in the mud behind the embankment,
+looking across the rails at the bridge, the line of trees, the ditch and
+the road.
+
+“Do you think we’re cut off then, Tenente?”
+
+“I don’t know. All I know is a German staff car went along that road.”
+
+“You don’t feel funny, Tenente? You haven’t got strange feelings in the
+head?”
+
+“Don’t be funny, Bonello.”
+
+“What about a drink?” Piani asked. “If we’re cut off we might as well
+have a drink.” He unhooked his canteen and uncorked it.
+
+“Look! Look!” Aymo said and pointed toward the road. Along the top of
+the stone bridge we could see German helmets moving. They were bent
+forward and moved smoothly, almost supernaturally, along. As they came
+off the bridge we saw them. They were bicycle troops. I saw the faces of
+the first two. They were ruddy and healthy-looking. Their helmets came
+low down over their foreheads and the side of their faces. Their
+carbines were clipped to the frame of the bicycles. Stick bombs hung
+handle down from their belts. Their helmets and their gray uniforms were
+wet and they rode easily, looking ahead and to both sides. There were
+two—then four in line, then two, then almost a dozen; then another
+dozen—then one alone. They did not talk but we could not have heard
+them because of the noise from the river. They were gone out of sight up
+the road.
+
+“Holy Mary,” Aymo said.
+
+“They were Germans,” Piani said. “Those weren’t Austrians.”
+
+“Why isn’t there somebody here to stop them?” I said. “Why haven’t they
+blown the bridge up? Why aren’t there machine-guns along this
+embankment?”
+
+“You tell us, Tenente,” Bonello said.
+
+I was very angry.
+
+“The whole bloody thing is crazy. Down below they blow up a little
+bridge. Here they leave a bridge on the main road. Where is everybody?
+Don’t they try and stop them at all?”
+
+“You tell us, Tenente,” Bonello said. I shut up. It was none of my
+business; all I had to do was to get to Pordenone with three ambulances.
+I had failed at that. All I had to do now was get to Pordenone. I
+probably could not even get to Udine. The hell I couldn’t. The thing to
+do was to be calm and not get shot or captured.
+
+“Didn’t you have a canteen open?” I asked Piani. He handed it to me. I
+took a long drink. “We might as well start,” I said. “There’s no hurry
+though. Do you want to eat something?”
+
+“This is no place to stay,” Bonello said.
+
+“All right. We’ll start.”
+
+“Should we keep on this side—out of sight?”
+
+“We’ll be better off on top. They may come along this bridge too. We
+don’t want them on top of us before we see them.”
+
+We walked along the railroad track. On both sides of us stretched the
+wet plain. Ahead across the plain was the hill of Udine. The roofs fell
+away from the castle on the hill. We could see the campanile and the
+clock-tower. There were many mulberry trees in the fields. Ahead I saw a
+place where the rails were torn up. The ties had been dug out too and
+thrown down the embankment.
+
+“Down! down!” Aymo said. We dropped down beside the embankment. There
+was another group of bicyclists passing along the road. I looked over
+the edge and saw them go on.
+
+“They saw us but they went on,” Aymo said.
+
+“We’ll get killed up there, Tenente,” Bonello said.
+
+“They don’t want us,” I said. “They’re after something else. We’re in
+more danger if they should come on us suddenly.”
+
+“I’d rather walk here out of sight,” Bonello said.
+
+“All right. We’ll walk along the tracks.”
+
+“Do you think we can get through?” Aymo asked.
+
+“Sure. There aren’t very many of them yet. We’ll go through in the
+dark.”
+
+“What was that staff car doing?”
+
+“Christ knows,” I said. We kept on up the tracks. Bonello tired of
+walking in the mud of the embankment and came up with the rest of us.
+The railway moved south away from the highway now and we could not see
+what passed along the road. A short bridge over a canal was blown up but
+we climbed across on what was left of the span. We heard firing ahead of
+us.
+
+We came up on the railway beyond the canal. It went on straight toward
+the town across the low fields. We could see the line of the other
+railway ahead of us. To the north was the main road where we had seen
+the cyclists; to the south there was a small branch-road across the
+fields with thick trees on each side. I thought we had better cut to the
+south and work around the town that way and across country toward
+Campoformio and the main road to the Tagliamento. We could avoid the
+main line of the retreat by keeping to the secondary roads beyond Udine.
+I knew there were plenty of side-roads across the plain. I started down
+the embankment.
+
+“Come on,” I said. We would make for the side-road and work to the south
+of the town. We all started down the embankment. A shot was fired at us
+from the side-road. The bullet went into the mud of the embankment.
+
+“Go on back,” I shouted. I started up the embankment, slipping in the
+mud. The drivers were ahead of me. I went up the embankment as fast as I
+could go. Two more shots came from the thick brush and Aymo, as he was
+crossing the tracks, lurched, tripped and fell face down. We pulled him
+down on the other side and turned him over. “His head ought to be
+uphill,” I said. Piani moved him around. He lay in the mud on the side
+of the embankment, his feet pointing downhill, breathing blood
+irregularly. The three of us squatted over him in the rain. He was hit
+low in the back of the neck and the bullet had ranged upward and come
+out under the right eye. He died while I was stopping up the two holes.
+Piani laid his head down, wiped at his face, with a piece of the
+emergency dressing, then let it alone.
+
+“The ——,” he said.
+
+“They weren’t Germans,” I said. “There can’t be any Germans over there.”
+
+“Italians,” Piani said, using the word as an epithet, “Italiani!”
+Bonello said nothing. He was sitting beside Aymo, not looking at him.
+Piani picked up Aymo’s cap where it had rolled down the embankment and
+put it over his face. He took out his canteen.
+
+“Do you want a drink?” Piani handed Bonello the canteen.
+
+“No,” Bonello said. He turned to me. “That might have happened to us any
+time on the railway tracks.”
+
+“No,” I said. “It was because we started across the field.”
+
+Bonello shook his head. “Aymo’s dead,” he said. “Who’s dead next,
+Tenente? Where do we go now?”
+
+“Those were Italians that shot,” I said. “They weren’t Germans.”
+
+“I suppose if they were Germans they’d have killed all of us,” Bonello
+said.
+
+“We are in more danger from Italians than Germans,” I said. “The rear
+guard are afraid of everything. The Germans know what they’re after.”
+
+“You reason it out, Tenente,” Bonello said.
+
+“Where do we go now?” Piani asked.
+
+“We better lie up some place till it’s dark. If we could get south we’d
+be all right.”
+
+“They’d have to shoot us all to prove they were right the first time,”
+Bonello said. “I’m not going to try them.”
+
+“We’ll find a place to lie up as near to Udine as we can get and then go
+through when it’s dark.”
+
+“Let’s go then,” Bonello said. We went down the north side of the
+embankment. I looked back. Aymo lay in the mud with the angle of the
+embankment. He was quite small and his arms were by his side, his
+puttee-wrapped legs and muddy boots together, his cap over his face. He
+looked very dead. It was raining. I had liked him as well as any one I
+ever knew. I had his papers in my pocket and would write to his family.
+Ahead across the fields was a farmhouse. There were trees around it and
+the farm buildings were built against the house. There was a balcony
+along the second floor held up by columns.
+
+“We better keep a little way apart,” I said. “I’ll go ahead.” I started
+toward the farmhouse. There was a path across the field.
+
+Crossing the field, I did not know but that some one would fire on us
+from the trees near the farmhouse or from the farmhouse itself. I walked
+toward it, seeing it very clearly. The balcony of the second floor
+merged into the barn and there was hay coming out between the columns.
+The courtyard was of stone blocks and all the trees were dripping with
+the rain. There was a big empty two-wheeled cart, the shafts tipped high
+up in the rain. I came to the courtyard, crossed it, and stood under the
+shelter of the balcony. The door of the house was open and I went in.
+Bonello and Piani came in after me. It was dark inside. I went back to
+the kitchen. There were ashes of a fire on the big open hearth. The pots
+hung over the ashes, but they were empty. I looked around but I could
+not find anything to eat.
+
+“We ought to lie up in the barn,” I said. “Do you think you could find
+anything to eat, Piani, and bring it up there?”
+
+“I’ll look,” Piani said.
+
+“I’ll look too,” Bonello said.
+
+“All right,” I said. “I’ll go up and look at the barn.” I found a stone
+stairway that went up from the stable underneath. The stable smelt dry
+and pleasant in the rain. The cattle were all gone, probably driven off
+when they left. The barn was half full of hay. There were two windows in
+the roof, one was blocked with boards, the other was a narrow dormer
+window on the north side. There was a chute so that hay might be pitched
+down to the cattle. Beams crossed the opening down into the main floor
+where the hay-carts drove in when the hay was hauled in to be pitched
+up. I heard the rain on the roof and smelled the hay and, when I went
+down, the clean smell of dried dung in the stable. We could pry a board
+loose and see out of the south window down into the courtyard. The other
+window looked out on the field toward the north. We could get out of
+either window onto the roof and down, or go down the hay chute if the
+stairs were impractical. It was a big barn and we could hide in the hay
+if we heard any one. It seemed like a good place. I was sure we could
+have gotten through to the south if they had not fired on us. It was
+impossible that there were Germans there. They were coming from the
+north and down the road from Cividale. They could not have come through
+from the south. The Italians were even more dangerous. They were
+frightened and firing on anything they saw. Last night on the retreat we
+had heard that there had been many Germans in Italian uniforms mixing
+with the retreat in the north. I did not believe it. That was one of
+those things you always heard in the war. It was one of the things the
+enemy always did to you. You did not know any one who went over in
+German uniform to confuse them. Maybe they did but it sounded difficult.
+I did not believe the Germans did it. I did not believe they had to.
+There was no need to confuse our retreat. The size of the army and the
+fewness of the roads did that. Nobody gave any orders, let alone
+Germans. Still, they would shoot us for Germans. They shot Aymo. The hay
+smelled good and lying in a barn in the hay took away all the years in
+between. We had lain in hay and talked and shot sparrows with an
+air-rifle when they perched in the triangle cut high up in the wall of
+the barn. The barn was gone now and one year they had cut the hemlock
+woods and there were only stumps, dried tree-tops, branches and fireweed
+where the woods had been. You could not go back. If you did not go
+forward what happened? You never got back to Milan. And if you got back
+to Milan what happened? I listened to the firing to the north toward
+Udine. I could hear machine-gun firing. There was no shelling. That was
+something. They must have gotten some troops along the road. I looked
+down in the half-light of the hay-barn and saw Piani standing on the
+hauling floor. He had a long sausage, a jar of something and two bottles
+of wine under his arm.
+
+“Come up,” I said. “There is the ladder.” Then I realized that I should
+help him with the things and went down. I was vague in the head from
+lying in the hay. I had been nearly asleep.
+
+“Where’s Bonello?” I asked.
+
+“I’ll tell you,” Piani said. We went up the ladder. Up on the hay we set
+the things down. Piani took out his knife with the corkscrew and drew
+the cork on a wine bottle.
+
+“They have sealing-wax on it,” he said. “It must be good.” He smiled.
+
+“Where’s Bonello?” I asked.
+
+Piani looked at me.
+
+“He went away, Tenente,” he said. “He wanted to be a prisoner.”
+
+I did not say anything.
+
+“He was afraid we would get killed.”
+
+I held the bottle of wine and did not say anything.
+
+“You see we don’t believe in the war anyway, Tenente.”
+
+“Why didn’t you go?” I asked.
+
+“I did not want to leave you.”
+
+“Where did he go?”
+
+“I don’t know, Tenente. He went away.”
+
+“All right,” I said. “Will you cut the sausage?”
+
+Piani looked at me in the half-light.
+
+“I cut it while we were talking,” he said. We sat in the hay and ate the
+sausage and drank the wine. It must have been wine they had saved for a
+wedding. It was so old that it was losing its color.
+
+“You look out of this window, Luigi,” I said. “I’ll go look out the
+other window.”
+
+We had each been drinking out of one of the bottles and I took my bottle
+with me and went over and lay flat on the hay and looked out the narrow
+window at the wet country. I do not know what I expected to see but I
+did not see anything except the fields and the bare mulberry trees and
+the rain falling. I drank the wine and it did not make me feel good.
+They had kept it too long and it had gone to pieces and lost its quality
+and color. I watched it get dark outside; the darkness came very
+quickly. It would be a black night with the rain. When it was dark there
+was no use watching any more, so I went over to Piani. He was lying
+asleep and I did not wake him but sat down beside him for a while. He
+was a big man and he slept heavily. After a while I woke him and we
+started.
+
+That was a very strange night. I do not know what I had expected, death
+perhaps and shooting in the dark and running, but nothing happened. We
+waited, lying flat beyond the ditch along the main road while a German
+battalion passed, then when they were gone we crossed the road and went
+on to the north. We were very close to Germans twice in the rain but
+they did not see us. We got past the town to the north without seeing
+any Italians, then after a while came on the main channels of the
+retreat and walked all night toward the Tagliamento. I had not realized
+how gigantic the retreat was. The whole country was moving, as well as
+the army. We walked all night, making better time than the vehicles. My
+leg ached and I was tired but we made good time. It seemed so silly for
+Bonello to have decided to be taken prisoner. There was no danger. We
+had walked through two armies without incident. If Aymo had not been
+killed there would never have seemed to be any danger. No one had
+bothered us when we were in plain sight along the railway. The killing
+came suddenly and unreasonably. I wondered where Bonello was.
+
+“How do you feel, Tenente?” Piani asked. We were going along the side of
+a road crowded with vehicles and troops.
+
+“Fine.”
+
+“I’m tired of this walking.”
+
+“Well, all we have to do is walk now. We don’t have to worry.”
+
+“Bonello was a fool.”
+
+“He was a fool all right.”
+
+“What will you do about him, Tenente?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“Can’t you just put him down as taken prisoner?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“You see if the war went on they would make bad trouble for his family.”
+
+“The war won’t go on,” a soldier said. “We’re going home. The war is
+over.”
+
+“Everybody’s going home.”
+
+“We’re all going home.”
+
+“Come on, Tenente,” Piani said. He wanted to get past them.
+
+“Tenente? Who’s a Tenente? _A basso gli ufficiali!_ Down with the
+officers!”
+
+Piani took me by the arm. “I better call you by your name,” he said.
+“They might try and make trouble. They’ve shot some officers.” We worked
+up past them.
+
+“I won’t make a report that will make trouble for his family.” I went on
+with our conversation.
+
+“If the war is over it makes no difference,” Piani said. “But I don’t
+believe it’s over. It’s too good that it should be over.”
+
+“We’ll know pretty soon,” I said.
+
+“I don’t believe it’s over. They all think it’s over but I don’t believe
+it.”
+
+“_Viva la Pace!_” a soldier shouted out. “We’re going home!”
+
+“It would be fine if we all went home,” Piani said. “Wouldn’t you like
+to go home?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“We’ll never go. I don’t think it’s over.”
+
+“_Andiamo a casa!_” a soldier shouted.
+
+“They throw away their rifles,” Piani said. “They take them off and drop
+them down while they’re marching. Then they shout.”
+
+“They ought to keep their rifles.”
+
+“They think if they throw away their rifles they can’t make them fight.”
+
+In the dark and the rain, making our way along the side of the road I
+could see that many of the troops still had their rifles. They stuck up
+above the capes.
+
+“What brigade are you?” an officer called out.
+
+“_Brigata di Pace_,” some one shouted. “Peace Brigade!” The officer said
+nothing.
+
+“What does he say? What does the officer say?”
+
+“Down with the officer. _Viva la Pace!_”
+
+“Come on,” Piani said. We passed two British ambulances, abandoned in
+the block of vehicles.
+
+“They’re from Gorizia,” Piani said. “I know the cars.”
+
+“They got further than we did.”
+
+“They started earlier.”
+
+“I wonder where the drivers are?”
+
+“Up ahead probably.”
+
+“The Germans have stopped outside Udine,” I said. “These people will all
+get across the river.”
+
+“Yes,” Piani said. “That’s why I think the war will go on.”
+
+“The Germans could come on,” I said. “I wonder why they don’t come on.”
+
+“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about this kind of war.”
+
+“They have to wait for their transport I suppose.”
+
+“I don’t know,” Piani said. Alone he was much gentler. When he was with
+the others he was a very rough talker.
+
+“Are you married, Luigi?”
+
+“You know I am married.”
+
+“Is that why you did not want to be a prisoner?”
+
+“That is one reason. Are you married, Tenente?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Neither is Bonello.”
+
+“You can’t tell anything by a man’s being married. But I should think a
+married man would want to get back to his wife,” I said. I would be glad
+to talk about wives.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“How are your feet?”
+
+“They’re sore enough.”
+
+Before daylight we reached the bank of the Tagliamento and followed down
+along the flooded river to the bridge where all the traffic was
+crossing.
+
+“They ought to be able to hold at this river,” Piani said. In the dark
+the flood looked high. The water swirled and it was wide. The wooden
+bridge was nearly three-quarters of a mile across, and the river, that
+usually ran in narrow channels in the wide stony bed far below the
+bridge, was close under the wooden planking. We went along the bank and
+then worked our way into the crowd that were crossing the bridge.
+Crossing slowly in the rain a few feet above the flood, pressed tight in
+the crowd, the box of an artillery caisson just ahead, I looked over the
+side and watched the river. Now that we could not go our own pace I felt
+very tired. There was no exhilaration in crossing the bridge. I wondered
+what it would be like if a plane bombed it in the daytime.
+
+“Piani,” I said.
+
+“Here I am, Tenente.” He was a little ahead in the jam. No one was
+talking. They were all trying to get across as soon as they could:
+thinking only of that. We were almost across. At the far end of the
+bridge there were officers and carabinieri standing on both sides
+flashing lights. I saw them silhouetted against the sky-line. As we came
+close to them I saw one of the officers point to a man in the column. A
+carabiniere went in after him and came out holding the man by the arm.
+He took him away from the road. We came almost opposite them. The
+officers were scrutinizing every one in the column, sometimes speaking
+to each other, going forward to flash a light in some one’s face. They
+took some one else out just before we came opposite. I saw the man. He
+was a lieutenant-colonel. I saw the stars in the box on his sleeve as
+they flashed a light on him. His hair was gray and he was short and fat.
+The carabiniere pulled him in behind the line of officers. As we came
+opposite I saw one or two of them look at me. Then one pointed at me and
+spoke to a carabiniere. I saw the carabiniere start for me, come through
+the edge of the column toward me, then felt him take me by the collar.
+
+“What’s the matter with you?” I said and hit him in the face. I saw his
+face under the hat, upturned mustaches and blood coming down his cheek.
+Another one dove in toward us.
+
+“What’s the matter with you?” I said. He did not answer. He was watching
+a chance to grab me. I put my arm behind me to loosen my pistol.
+
+“Don’t you know you can’t touch an officer?”
+
+The other one grabbed me from behind and pulled my arm up so that it
+twisted in the socket. I turned with him and the other one grabbed me
+around the neck. I kicked his shins and got my left knee into his groin.
+
+“Shoot him if he resists,” I heard some one say.
+
+“What’s the meaning of this?” I tried to shout but my voice was not very
+loud. They had me at the side of the road now.
+
+“Shoot him if he resists,” an officer said. “Take him over back.”
+
+“Who are you?”
+
+“You’ll find out.”
+
+“Who are you?”
+
+“Battle police,” another officer said.
+
+“Why don’t you ask me to step over instead of having one of these
+airplanes grab me?”
+
+They did not answer. They did not have to answer. They were battle
+police.
+
+“Take him back there with the others,” the first officer said. “You see.
+He speaks Italian with an accent.”
+
+“So do you, you ——,” I said.
+
+“Take him back with the others,” the first officer said. They took me
+down behind the line of officers below the road toward a group of people
+in a field by the river bank. As we walked toward them shots were fired.
+I saw flashes of the rifles and heard the reports. We came up to the
+group. There were four officers standing together, with a man in front
+of them with a carabiniere on each side of him. A group of men were
+standing guarded by carabinieri. Four other carabinieri stood near the
+questioning officers, leaning on their carbines. They were wide-hatted
+carabinieri. The two who had me shoved me in with the group waiting to
+be questioned. I looked at the man the officers were questioning. He was
+the fat gray-haired little lieutenant-colonel they had taken out of the
+column. The questioners had all the efficiency, coldness and command of
+themselves of Italians who are firing and are not being fired on.
+
+“Your brigade?”
+
+He told them.
+
+“Regiment?”
+
+He told them.
+
+“Why are you not with your regiment?”
+
+He told them.
+
+“Do you not know that an officer should be with his troops?”
+
+He did.
+
+That was all. Another officer spoke.
+
+“It is you and such as you that have let the barbarians onto the sacred
+soil of the fatherland.”
+
+“I beg your pardon,” said the lieutenant-colonel.
+
+“It is because of treachery such as yours that we have lost the fruits
+of victory.”
+
+“Have you ever been in a retreat?” the lieutenant-colonel asked.
+
+“Italy should never retreat.”
+
+We stood there in the rain and listened to this. We were facing the
+officers and the prisoner stood in front and a little to one side of us.
+
+“If you are going to shoot me,” the lieutenant-colonel said, “please
+shoot me at once without further questioning. The questioning is
+stupid.” He made the sign of the cross. The officers spoke together. One
+wrote something on a pad of paper.
+
+“Abandoned his troops, ordered to be shot,” he said.
+
+Two carabinieri took the lieutenant-colonel to the river bank. He walked
+in the rain, an old man with his hat off, a carabiniere on either side.
+I did not watch them shoot him but I heard the shots. They were
+questioning some one else. This officer too was separated from his
+troops. He was not allowed to make an explanation. He cried when they
+read the sentence from the pad of paper, and they were questioning
+another when they shot him. They made a point of being intent on
+questioning the next man while the man who had been questioned before
+was being shot. In this way there was obviously nothing they could do
+about it. I did not know whether I should wait to be questioned or make
+a break now. I was obviously a German in Italian uniform. I saw how
+their minds worked; if they had minds and if they worked. They were all
+young men and they were saving their country. The second army was being
+re-formed beyond the Tagliamento. They were executing officers of the
+rank of major and above who were separated from their troops. They were
+also dealing summarily with German agitators in Italian uniform. They
+wore steel helmets. Only two of us had steel helmets. Some of the
+carabinieri had them. The other carabinieri wore the wide hat. Airplanes
+we called them. We stood in the rain and were taken out one at a time to
+be questioned and shot. So far they had shot every one they had
+questioned. The questioners had that beautiful detachment and devotion
+to stern justice of men dealing in death without being in any danger of
+it. They were questioning a full colonel of a line regiment. Three more
+officers had just been put in with us.
+
+“Where was his regiment?”
+
+I looked at the carabinieri. They were looking at the newcomers. The
+others were looking at the colonel. I ducked down, pushed between two
+men, and ran for the river, my head down. I tripped at the edge and went
+in with a splash. The water was very cold and I stayed under as long as
+I could. I could feel the current swirl me and I stayed under until I
+thought I could never come up. The minute I came up I took a breath and
+went down again. It was easy to stay under with so much clothing and my
+boots. When I came up the second time I saw a piece of timber ahead of
+me and reached it and held on with one hand. I kept my head behind it
+and did not even look over it. I did not want to see the bank. There
+were shots when I ran and shots when I came up the first time. I heard
+them when I was almost above water. There were no shots now. The piece
+of timber swung in the current and I held it with one hand. I looked at
+the bank. It seemed to be going by very fast. There was much wood in the
+stream. The water was very cold. We passed the brush of an island above
+the water. I held onto the timber with both hands and let it take me
+along. The shore was out of sight now.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXXI
+
+You do not know how long you are in a river when the current moves
+swiftly. It seems a long time and it may be very short. The water was
+cold and in flood and many things passed that had been floated off the
+banks when the river rose. I was lucky to have a heavy timber to hold on
+to, and I lay in the icy water with my chin on the wood, holding as
+easily as I could with both hands. I was afraid of cramps and I hoped we
+would move toward the shore. We went down the river in a long curve. It
+was beginning to be light enough so I could see the bushes along the
+shore-line. There was a brush island ahead and the current moved toward
+the shore. I wondered if I should take off my boots and clothes and try
+to swim ashore, but decided not to. I had never thought of anything but
+that I would reach the shore some way, and I would be in a bad position
+if I landed barefoot. I had to get to Mestre some way.
+
+I watched the shore come close, then swing away, then come closer again.
+We were floating more slowly. The shore was very close now. I could see
+twigs on the willow bush. The timber swung slowly so that the bank was
+behind me and I knew we were in an eddy. We went slowly around. As I saw
+the bank again, very close now, I tried holding with one arm and kicking
+and swimming the timber toward the bank with the other, but I did not
+bring it any closer. I was afraid we would move out of the eddy and,
+holding with one hand, I drew up my feet so they were against the side
+of the timber and shoved hard toward the bank. I could see the brush,
+but even with my momentum and swimming as hard as I could, the current
+was taking me away. I thought then I would drown because of my boots,
+but I thrashed and fought through the water, and when I looked up the
+bank was coming toward me, and I kept thrashing and swimming in a
+heavy-footed panic until I reached it. I hung to the willow branch and
+did not have strength to pull myself up but I knew I would not drown
+now. It had never occurred to me on the timber that I might drown. I
+felt hollow and sick in my stomach and chest from the effort, and I held
+to the branches and waited. When the sick feeling was gone I pulled into
+the willow bushes and rested again, my arms around some brush, holding
+tight with my hands to the branches. Then I crawled out, pushed on
+through the willows and onto the bank. It was half-daylight and I saw no
+one. I lay flat on the bank and heard the river and the rain.
+
+After a while I got up and started along the bank. I knew there was no
+bridge across the river until Latisana. I thought I might be opposite
+San Vito. I began to think out what I should do. Ahead there was a ditch
+running into the river. I went toward it. So far I had seen no one and I
+sat down by some bushes along the bank of the ditch and took off my
+shoes and emptied them of water. I took off my coat, took my wallet with
+my papers and my money all wet in it out of the inside pocket and then
+wrung the coat out. I took off my trousers and wrung them too, then my
+shirt and underclothing. I slapped and rubbed myself and then dressed
+again. I had lost my cap.
+
+Before I put on my coat I cut the cloth stars off my sleeves and put
+them in the inside pocket with my money. My money was wet but was all
+right. I counted it. There were three thousand and some lire. My clothes
+felt wet and clammy and I slapped my arms to keep the circulation going.
+I had woven underwear and I did not think I would catch cold if I kept
+moving. They had taken my pistol at the road and I put the holster under
+my coat. I had no cape and it was cold in the rain. I started up the
+bank of the canal. It was daylight and the country was wet, low and
+dismal looking. The fields were bare and wet; a long way away I could
+see a campanile rising out of the plain. I came up onto a road. Ahead I
+saw some troops coming down the road. I limped along the side of the
+road and they passed me and paid no attention to me. They were a
+machine-gun detachment going up toward the river. I went on down the
+road.
+
+That day I crossed the Venetian plain. It is a low level country and
+under the rain it is even flatter. Toward the sea there are salt marshes
+and very few roads. The roads all go along the river mouths to the sea
+and to cross the country you must go along the paths beside the canals.
+I was working across the country from the north to the south and had
+crossed two railway lines and many roads and finally I came out at the
+end of a path onto a railway line where it ran beside a marsh. It was
+the main line from Venice to Trieste, with a high solid embankment, a
+solid roadbed and double track. Down the tracks a way was a flag-station
+and I could see soldiers on guard. Up the line there was a bridge over a
+stream that flowed into the marsh. I could see a guard too at the
+bridge. Crossing the fields to the north I had seen a train pass on this
+railroad, visible a long way across the flat plain, and I thought a
+train might come from Portogruaro. I watched the guards and lay down on
+the embankment so that I could see both ways along the track. The guard
+at the bridge walked a way up the line toward where I lay, then turned
+and went back toward the bridge. I lay, and was hungry, and waited for
+the train. The one I had seen was so long that the engine moved it very
+slowly and I was sure I could get aboard it. After I had almost given up
+hoping for one I saw a train coming. The engine, coming straight on,
+grew larger slowly. I looked at the guard at the bridge. He was walking
+on the near side of the bridge but on the other side of the tracks. That
+would put him out of sight when the train passed. I watched the engine
+come nearer. It was working hard. I could see there were many cars. I
+knew there would be guards on the train, and I tried to see where they
+were, but, keeping out of sight, I could not. The engine was almost to
+where I was lying. When it came opposite, working and puffing even on
+the level, and I saw the engineer pass, I stood up and stepped up close
+to the passing cars. If the guards were watching I was a less suspicious
+object standing beside the track. Several closed freight-cars passed.
+Then I saw a low open car of the sort they call gondolas coming, covered
+with canvas. I stood until it had almost passed, then jumped and caught
+the rear hand-rods and pulled up. I crawled down between the gondola and
+the shelter of the high freight-car behind. I did not think any one had
+seen me. I was holding to the hand-rods and crouching low, my feet on
+the coupling. We were almost opposite the bridge. I remembered the
+guard. As we passed him he looked at me. He was a boy and his helmet was
+too big for him. I stared at him contemptuously and he looked away. He
+thought I had something to do with the train.
+
+We were past. I saw him still looking uncomfortable, watching the other
+cars pass and I stooped to see how the canvas was fastened. It had
+grummets and was laced down at the edge with cord. I took out my knife,
+cut the cord and put my arm under. There were hard bulges under the
+canvas that tightened in the rain. I looked up and ahead. There was a
+guard on the freight-car ahead but he was looking forward. I let go of
+the hand-rails and ducked under the canvas. My forehead hit something
+that gave me a violent bump and I felt blood on my face but I crawled on
+in and lay flat. Then I turned around and fastened down the canvas.
+
+I was in under the canvas with guns. They smelled cleanly of oil and
+grease. I lay and listened to the rain on the canvas and the clicking of
+the car over the rails. There was a little light came through and I lay
+and looked at the guns. They had their canvas jackets on. I thought they
+must have been sent ahead from the third army. The bump on my forehead
+was swollen and I stopped the bleeding by lying still and letting it
+coagulate, then picked away the dried blood except over the cut. It was
+nothing. I had no handkerchief, but feeling with my fingers I washed
+away where the dried blood had been, with rain-water that dripped from
+the canvas, and wiped it clean with the sleeve of my coat. I did not
+want to look conspicuous. I knew I would have to get out before they got
+to Mestre because they would be taking care of these guns. They had no
+guns to lose or forget about. I was terrifically hungry.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXII
+
+Lying on the floor of the flat-car with the guns beside me under the
+canvas I was wet, cold and very hungry. Finally I rolled over and lay
+flat on my stomach with my head on my arms. My knee was stiff, but it
+had been very satisfactory. Valentini had done a fine job. I had done
+half the retreat on foot and swum part of the Tagliamento with his knee.
+It was his knee all right. The other knee was mine. Doctors did things
+to you and then it was not your body any more. The head was mine, and
+the inside of the belly. It was very hungry in there. I could feel it
+turn over on itself. The head was mine, but not to use, not to think
+with; only to remember and not too much remember.
+
+I could remember Catherine but I knew I would get crazy if I thought
+about her when I was not sure yet I would see her, so I would not think
+about her, only about her a little, only about her with the car going
+slowly and clickingly, and some light through the canvas and my lying
+with Catherine on the floor of the car. Hard as the floor of the car to
+lie not thinking only feeling, having been away too long, the clothes
+wet and the floor moving only a little each time and lonesome inside and
+alone with wet clothing and hard floor for a wife.
+
+You did not love the floor of a flat-car nor guns with canvas jackets
+and the smell of vaselined metal or a canvas that rain leaked through,
+although it is very fine under a canvas and pleasant with guns; but you
+loved some one else whom now you knew was not even to be pretended
+there; you seeing now very clearly and coldly—not so coldly as clearly
+and emptily. You saw emptily, lying on your stomach, having been present
+when one army moved back and another came forward. You had lost your
+cars and your men as a floorwalker loses the stock of his department in
+a fire. There was, however, no insurance. You were out of it now. You
+had no more obligation. If they shot floorwalkers after a fire in the
+department store because they spoke with an accent they had always had,
+then certainly the floorwalkers would not be expected to return when the
+store opened again for business. They might seek other employment; if
+there was any other employment and the police did not get them.
+
+Anger was washed away in the river along with any obligation. Although
+that ceased when the carabiniere put his hands on my collar. I would
+like to have had the uniform off although I did not care much about the
+outward forms. I had taken off the stars, but that was for convenience.
+It was no point of honor. I was not against them. I was through. I
+wished them all the luck. There were the good ones, and the brave ones,
+and the calm ones and the sensible ones, and they deserved it. But it
+was not my show any more and I wished this bloody train would get to
+Mestre and I would eat and stop thinking. I would have to stop.
+
+Piani would tell them they had shot me. They went through the pockets
+and took the papers of the people they shot. They would not have my
+papers. They might call me drowned. I wondered what they would hear in
+the States. Dead from wounds and other causes. Good Christ I was hungry.
+I wondered what had become of the priest at the mess. And Rinaldi. He
+was probably at Pordenone. If they had not gone further back. Well, I
+would never see him now. I would never see any of them now. That life
+was over. I did not think he had syphilis. It was not a serious disease
+anyway if you took it in time, they said. But he would worry. I would
+worry too if I had it. Any one would worry.
+
+I was not made to think. I was made to eat. My God, yes. Eat and drink
+and sleep with Catherine. To-night maybe. No that was impossible. But
+to-morrow night, and a good meal and sheets and never going away again
+except together. Probably have to go damned quickly. She would go. I
+knew she would go. When would we go? That was something to think about.
+It was getting dark. I lay and thought where we would go. There were
+many places.
+
+
+
+
+                                BOOK IV
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+I dropped off the train in Milan as it slowed to come into the station
+early in the morning before it was light. I crossed the track and came
+out between some buildings and down onto the street. A wine shop was
+open and I went in for some coffee. It smelled of early morning, of
+swept dust, spoons in coffee-glasses and the wet circles left by
+wine-glasses. The proprietor was behind the bar. Two soldiers sat at a
+table. I stood at the bar and drank a glass of coffee and ate a piece of
+bread. The coffee was gray with milk, and I skimmed the milk scum off
+the top with a piece of bread. The proprietor looked at me.
+
+“You want a glass of grappa?”
+
+“No thanks.”
+
+“On me,” he said and poured a small glass and pushed it toward me.
+“What’s happening at the front?”
+
+“I would not know.”
+
+“They are drunk,” he said, moving his hand toward the two soldiers. I
+could believe him. They looked drunk.
+
+“Tell me,” he said, “what is happening at the front?”
+
+“I would not know about the front.”
+
+“I saw you come down the wall. You came off the train.”
+
+“There is a big retreat.”
+
+“I read the papers. What happens? Is it over?”
+
+“I don’t think so.”
+
+He filled the glass with grappa from a short bottle. “If you are in
+trouble,” he said, “I can keep you.”
+
+“I am not in trouble.”
+
+“If you are in trouble stay here with me.”
+
+“Where does one stay?”
+
+“In the building. Many stay here. Any who are in trouble stay here.”
+
+“Are many in trouble?”
+
+“It depends on the trouble. You are a South American?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Speak Spanish?”
+
+“A little.”
+
+He wiped off the bar.
+
+“It is hard now to leave the country but in no way impossible.”
+
+“I have no wish to leave.”
+
+“You can stay here as long as you want. You will see what sort of man I
+am.”
+
+“I have to go this morning but I will remember the address to return.”
+
+He shook his head. “You won’t come back if you talk like that. I thought
+you were in real trouble.”
+
+“I am in no trouble. But I value the address of a friend.”
+
+I put a ten-lira note on the bar to pay for the coffee.
+
+“Have a grappa with me,” I said.
+
+“It is not necessary.”
+
+“Have one.”
+
+He poured the two glasses.
+
+“Remember,” he said. “Come here. Do not let other people take you in.
+Here you are all right.”
+
+“I am sure.”
+
+“You are sure?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+He was serious. “Then let me tell you one thing. Do not go about with
+that coat.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“On the sleeves it shows very plainly where the stars have been cut
+away. The cloth is a different color.”
+
+I did not say anything.
+
+“If you have no papers I can give you papers.”
+
+“What papers?”
+
+“Leave-papers.”
+
+“I have no need for papers. I have papers.”
+
+“All right,” he said. “But if you need papers I can get what you wish.”
+
+“How much are such papers?”
+
+“It depends on what they are. The price is reasonable.”
+
+“I don’t need any now.”
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“I’m all right,” I said.
+
+When I went out he said, “Don’t forget that I am your friend.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“I will see you again,” he said.
+
+“Good,” I said.
+
+Outside I kept away from the station, where there were military police,
+and picked up a cab at the edge of the little park. I gave the driver
+the address of the hospital. At the hospital I went to the porter’s
+lodge. His wife embraced me. He shook my hand.
+
+“You are back. You are safe.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Have you had breakfast?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“How are you, Tenente? How are you?” the wife asked.
+
+“Fine.”
+
+“Won’t you have breakfast with us?”
+
+“No, thank you. Tell me is Miss Barkley here at the hospital now?”
+
+“Miss Barkley?”
+
+“The English lady nurse.”
+
+“His girl,” the wife said. She patted my arm and smiled.
+
+“No,” the porter said. “She is away.”
+
+My heart went down. “You are sure? I mean the tall blonde English young
+lady.”
+
+“I am sure. She is gone to Stresa.”
+
+“When did she go?”
+
+“She went two days ago with the other lady English.”
+
+“Good,” I said. “I wish you to do something for me. Do not tell any one
+you have seen me. It is very important.”
+
+“I won’t tell any one,” the porter said. I gave him a ten-lira note. He
+pushed it away.
+
+“I promise you I will tell no one,” he said. “I don’t want any money.”
+
+“What can we do for you, Signor Tenente?” his wife asked.
+
+“Only that,” I said.
+
+“We are dumb,” the porter said. “You will let me know anything I can
+do?”
+
+“Yes,” I said. “Good-by. I will see you again.”
+
+They stood in the door, looking after me.
+
+I got into the cab and gave the driver the address of Simmons, one of
+the men I knew who was studying singing.
+
+Simmons lived a long way out in the town toward the Porta Magenta. He
+was still in bed and sleepy when I went to see him.
+
+“You get up awfully early, Henry,” he said.
+
+“I came in on the early train.”
+
+“What’s all this retreat? Were you at the front? Will you have a
+cigarette? They’re in that box on the table.” It was a big room with a
+bed beside the wall, a piano over on the far side and a dresser and
+table. I sat on a chair by the bed. Simmons sat propped up by the
+pillows and smoked.
+
+“I’m in a jam, Sim,” I said.
+
+“So am I,” he said. “I’m always in a jam. Won’t you smoke?”
+
+“No,” I said. “What’s the procedure in going to Switzerland?”
+
+“For you? The Italians wouldn’t let you out of the country.”
+
+“Yes. I know that. But the Swiss. What will they do?”
+
+“They intern you.”
+
+“I know. But what’s the mechanics of it?”
+
+“Nothing. It’s very simple. You can go anywhere. I think you just have
+to report or something. Why? Are you fleeing the police?”
+
+“Nothing definite yet.”
+
+“Don’t tell me if you don’t want. But it would be interesting to hear.
+Nothing happens here. I was a great flop at Piacenza.”
+
+“I’m awfully sorry.”
+
+“Oh yes—I went very badly. I sung well too. I’m going to try it again
+at the Lyrico here.”
+
+“I’d like to be there.”
+
+“You’re awfully polite. You aren’t in a bad mess, are you?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“Don’t tell me if you don’t want. How do you happen to be away from the
+bloody front?”
+
+“I think I’m through with it.”
+
+“Good boy. I always knew you had sense. Can I help you any way?”
+
+“You’re awfully busy.”
+
+“Not a bit of it, my dear Henry. Not a bit of it. I’d be happy to do
+anything.”
+
+“You’re about my size. Would you go out and buy me an outfit of civilian
+clothes? I’ve clothes but they’re all at Rome.”
+
+“You did live there, didn’t you? It’s a filthy place. How did you ever
+live there?”
+
+“I wanted to be an architect.”
+
+“That’s no place for that. Don’t buy clothes. I’ll give you all the
+clothes you want. I’ll fit you out so you’ll be a great success. Go in
+that dressing room. There’s a closet. Take anything you want. My dear
+fellow, you don’t want to buy clothes.”
+
+“I’d rather buy them, Sim.”
+
+“My dear fellow, it’s easier for me to let you have them than go out and
+buy them. Have you got a passport? You won’t get far without a
+passport.”
+
+“Yes. I’ve still got my passport.”
+
+“Then get dressed, my dear fellow, and off to old Helvetia.”
+
+“It’s not that simple. I have to go up to Stresa first.”
+
+“Ideal, my dear fellow. You just row a boat across. If I wasn’t trying
+to sing, I’d go with you. I’ll go yet.”
+
+“You could take up yodelling.”
+
+“My dear fellow, I’ll take up yodelling yet. I really can sing though.
+That’s the strange part.”
+
+“I’ll bet you can sing.”
+
+He lay back in bed smoking a cigarette.
+
+“Don’t bet too much. But I can sing though. It’s damned funny, but I
+can. I like to sing. Listen.” He roared into “Africana,” his neck
+swelling, the veins standing out. “I can sing,” he said. “Whether they
+like it or not.” I looked out of the window. “I’ll go down and let my
+cab go.”
+
+“Come back up, my dear fellow, and we’ll have breakfast.” He stepped out
+of bed, stood straight, took a deep breath and commenced doing bending
+exercises. I went downstairs and paid off the cab.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+In civilian clothes I felt a masquerader. I had been in uniform a long
+time and I missed the feeling of being held by your clothes. The
+trousers felt very floppy. I had bought a ticket at Milan for Stresa. I
+had also bought a new hat. I could not wear Sim’s hat but his clothes
+were fine. They smelled of tobacco and as I sat in the compartment and
+looked out the window the new hat felt very new and the clothes very
+old. I myself felt as sad as the wet Lombard country that was outside
+through the window. There were some aviators in the compartment who did
+not think much of me. They avoided looking at me and were very scornful
+of a civilian my age. I did not feel insulted. In the old days I would
+have insulted them and picked a fight. They got off at Gallarate and I
+was glad to be alone. I had the paper but I did not read it because I
+did not want to read about the war. I was going to forget the war. I had
+made a separate peace. I felt damned lonely and was glad when the train
+got to Stresa.
+
+At the station I had expected to see the porters from the hotels but
+there was no one. The season had been over a long time and no one met
+the train. I got down from the train with my bag, it was Sim’s bag, and
+very light to carry, being empty except for two shirts, and stood under
+the roof of the station in the rain while the train went on. I found a
+man in the station and asked him if he knew what hotels were open. The
+Grand-Hôtel & des Isles Borromées was open and several small hotels that
+stayed open all the year. I started in the rain for the Isles Borromées
+carrying my bag. I saw a carriage coming down the street and signalled
+to the driver. It was better to arrive in a carriage. We drove up to the
+carriage entrance of the big hotel and the concierge came out with an
+umbrella and was very polite.
+
+I took a good room. It was very big and light and looked out on the
+lake. The clouds were down over the lake but it would be beautiful with
+the sunlight. I was expecting my wife, I said. There was a big double
+bed, a _letto matrimoniale_ with a satin coverlet. The hotel was very
+luxurious. I went down the long halls, down the wide stairs, through the
+rooms to the bar. I knew the barman and sat on a high stool and ate
+salted almonds and potato chips. The martini felt cool and clean.
+
+“What are you doing here in _borghese_?” the barman asked after he had
+mixed a second martini.
+
+“I am on leave. Convalescing-leave.”
+
+“There is no one here. I don’t know why they keep the hotel open.”
+
+“Have you been fishing?”
+
+“I’ve caught some beautiful pieces. Trolling this time of year you catch
+some beautiful pieces.”
+
+“Did you ever get the tobacco I sent?”
+
+“Yes. Didn’t you get my card?”
+
+I laughed. I had not been able to get the tobacco. It was American
+pipe-tobacco that he wanted, but my relatives had stopped sending it or
+it was being held up. Anyway it never came.
+
+“I’ll get some somewhere,” I said. “Tell me have you seen two English
+girls in the town? They came here day before yesterday.”
+
+“They are not at the hotel.”
+
+“They are nurses.”
+
+“I have seen two nurses. Wait a minute, I will find out where they are.”
+
+“One of them is my wife,” I said. “I have come here to meet her.”
+
+“The other is my wife.”
+
+“I am not joking.”
+
+“Pardon my stupid joke,” he said. “I did not understand.” He went away
+and was gone quite a little while. I ate olives, salted almonds and
+potato chips and looked at myself in civilian clothes in the mirror
+behind the bar. The bartender came back. “They are at the little hotel
+near the station,” he said.
+
+“How about some sandwiches?”
+
+“I’ll ring for some. You understand there is nothing here, now there are
+no people.”
+
+“Isn’t there really any one at all?”
+
+“Yes. There are a few people.”
+
+The sandwiches came and I ate three and drank a couple more martinis. I
+had never tasted anything so cool and clean. They made me feel
+civilized. I had had too much red wine, bread, cheese, bad coffee and
+grappa. I sat on the high stool before the pleasant mahogany, the brass
+and the mirrors and did not think at all. The barman asked me some
+question.
+
+“Don’t talk about the war,” I said. The war was a long way away. Maybe
+there wasn’t any war. There was no war here. Then I realized it was over
+for me. But I did not have the feeling that it was really over. I had
+the feeling of a boy who thinks of what is happening at a certain hour
+at the schoolhouse from which he has played truant.
+
+
+
+Catherine and Helen Ferguson were at supper when I came to their hotel.
+Standing in the hallway I saw them at table. Catherine’s face was away
+from me and I saw the line of her hair and her cheek and her lovely neck
+and shoulders. Ferguson was talking. She stopped when I came in.
+
+“My God,” she said.
+
+“Hello,” I said.
+
+“Why it’s you!” Catherine said. Her face lighted up. She looked too
+happy to believe it. I kissed her. Catherine blushed and I sat down at
+the table.
+
+“You’re a fine mess,” Ferguson said. “What are you doing here? Have you
+eaten?”
+
+“No.” The girl who was serving the meal came in and I told her to bring
+a plate for me. Catherine looked at me all the time, her eyes happy.
+
+“What are you doing in mufti?” Ferguson asked.
+
+“I’m in the Cabinet.”
+
+“You’re in some mess.”
+
+“Cheer up, Fergy. Cheer up just a little.”
+
+“I’m not cheered by seeing you. I know the mess you’ve gotten this girl
+into. You’re no cheerful sight to me.”
+
+Catherine smiled at me and touched me with her foot under the table.
+
+“No one got me in a mess, Fergy. I get in my own messes.”
+
+“I can’t stand him,” Ferguson said. “He’s done nothing but ruin you with
+his sneaking Italian tricks. Americans are worse than Italians.”
+
+“The Scotch are such a moral people,” Catherine said.
+
+“I don’t mean that. I mean his Italian sneakiness.”
+
+“Am I sneaky, Fergy?”
+
+“You are. You’re worse than sneaky. You’re like a snake. A snake with an
+Italian uniform: with a cape around your neck.”
+
+“I haven’t got an Italian uniform now.”
+
+“That’s just another example of your sneakiness. You had a love affair
+all summer and got this girl with child and now I suppose you’ll sneak
+off.”
+
+I smiled at Catherine and she smiled at me.
+
+“We’ll both sneak off,” she said.
+
+“You’re two of the same thing,” Ferguson said. “I’m ashamed of you,
+Catherine Barkley. You have no shame and no honor and you’re as sneaky
+as he is.”
+
+“Don’t, Fergy,” Catherine said and patted her hand. “Don’t denounce me.
+You know we like each other.”
+
+“Take your hand away,” Ferguson said. Her face was red. “If you had any
+shame it would be different. But you’re God knows how many months gone
+with child and you think it’s a joke and are all smiles because your
+seducer’s come back. You’ve no shame and no feelings.” She began to cry.
+Catherine went over and put her arm around her. As she stood comforting
+Ferguson, I could see no change in her figure.
+
+“I don’t care,” Ferguson sobbed. “I think it’s dreadful.”
+
+“There, there, Fergy,” Catherine comforted her. “I’ll be ashamed. Don’t
+cry, Fergy. Don’t cry, old Fergy.”
+
+“I’m not crying,” Ferguson sobbed. “I’m not crying. Except for the awful
+thing you’ve gotten into.” She looked at me. “I hate you,” she said.
+“She can’t make me not hate you. You dirty sneaking American Italian.”
+Her eyes and nose were red with crying.
+
+Catherine smiled at me.
+
+“Don’t you smile at him with your arm around me.”
+
+“You’re unreasonable, Fergy.”
+
+“I know it,” Ferguson sobbed. “You mustn’t mind me, either of you. I’m
+so upset. I’m not reasonable. I know it. I want you both to be happy.”
+
+“We’re happy,” Catherine said. “You’re a sweet Fergy.”
+
+Ferguson cried again. “I don’t want you happy the way you are. Why don’t
+you get married? You haven’t got another wife have you?”
+
+“No,” I said. Catherine laughed.
+
+“It’s nothing to laugh about,” Ferguson said. “Plenty of them have other
+wives.”
+
+“We’ll be married, Fergy,” Catherine said, “if it will please you.”
+
+“Not to please me. You should want to be married.”
+
+“We’ve been very busy.”
+
+“Yes. I know. Busy making babies.” I thought she was going to cry again
+but she went into bitterness instead. “I suppose you’ll go off with him
+now to-night?”
+
+“Yes,” said Catherine. “If he wants me.”
+
+“What about me?”
+
+“Are you afraid to stay here alone?”
+
+“Yes, I am.”
+
+“Then I’ll stay with you.”
+
+“No, go on with him. Go with him right away. I’m sick of seeing both of
+you.”
+
+“We’d better finish dinner.”
+
+“No. Go right away.”
+
+“Fergy, be reasonable.”
+
+“I say get out right away. Go away both of you.”
+
+“Let’s go then,” I said. I was sick of Fergy.
+
+“You do want to go. You see you want to leave me even to eat dinner
+alone. I’ve always wanted to go to the Italian lakes and this is how it
+is. Oh, Oh,” she sobbed, then looked at Catherine and choked.
+
+“We’ll stay till after dinner,” Catherine said. “And I’ll not leave you
+alone if you want me to stay. I won’t leave you alone, Fergy.”
+
+“No. No. I want you to go. I want you to go.” She wiped her eyes. “I’m
+so unreasonable. Please don’t mind me.”
+
+The girl who served the meal had been upset by all the crying. Now as
+she brought in the next course she seemed relieved that things were
+better.
+
+
+
+That night at the hotel, in our room with the long empty hall outside
+and our shoes outside the door, a thick carpet on the floor of the room,
+outside the windows the rain falling and in the room light and pleasant
+and cheerful, then the light out and it exciting with smooth sheets and
+the bed comfortable, feeling that we had come home, feeling no longer
+alone, waking in the night to find the other one there, and not gone
+away; all other things were unreal. We slept when we were tired and if
+we woke the other one woke too so one was not alone. Often a man wishes
+to be alone and a girl wishes to be alone too and if they love each
+other they are jealous of that in each other, but I can truly say we
+never felt that. We could feel alone when we were together, alone
+against the others. It has only happened to me like that once. I have
+been alone while I was with many girls and that is the way that you can
+be most lonely. But we were never lonely and never afraid when we were
+together. I know that the night is not the same as the day: that all
+things are different, that the things of the night cannot be explained
+in the day, because they do not then exist, and the night can be a
+dreadful time for lonely people once their loneliness has started. But
+with Catherine there was almost no difference in the night except that
+it was an even better time. If people bring so much courage to this
+world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills
+them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the
+broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very
+good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none
+of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no
+special hurry.
+
+
+
+I remember waking in the morning. Catherine was asleep and the sunlight
+was coming in through the window. The rain had stopped and I stepped out
+of bed and across the floor to the window. Down below were the gardens,
+bare now but beautifully regular, the gravel paths, the trees, the stone
+wall by the lake and the lake in the sunlight with the mountains beyond.
+I stood at the window looking out and when I turned away I saw Catherine
+was awake and watching me.
+
+“How are you, darling?” she said. “Isn’t it a lovely day?”
+
+“How do you feel?”
+
+“I feel very well. We had a lovely night.”
+
+“Do you want breakfast?”
+
+She wanted breakfast. So did I and we had it in bed, the November
+sunlight coming in the window, and the breakfast tray across my lap.
+
+“Don’t you want the paper? You always wanted the paper in the hospital.”
+
+“No,” I said. “I don’t want the paper now.”
+
+“Was it so bad you don’t want even to read about it?”
+
+“I don’t want to read about it.”
+
+“I wish I had been with you so I would know about it too.”
+
+“I’ll tell you about it if I ever get it straight in my head.”
+
+“But won’t they arrest you if they catch you out of uniform?”
+
+“They’ll probably shoot me.”
+
+“Then we’ll not stay here. We’ll get out of the country.”
+
+“I’d thought something of that.”
+
+“We’ll get out. Darling, you shouldn’t take silly chances. Tell me how
+did you come from Mestre to Milan?”
+
+“I came on the train. I was in uniform then.”
+
+“Weren’t you in danger then?”
+
+“Not much. I had an old order of movement. I fixed the dates on it in
+Mestre.”
+
+“Darling, you’re liable to be arrested here any time. I won’t have it.
+It’s silly to do something like that. Where would we be if they took you
+off?”
+
+“Let’s not think about it. I’m tired of thinking about it.”
+
+“What would you do if they came to arrest you?”
+
+“Shoot them.”
+
+“You see how silly you are, I won’t let you go out of the hotel until we
+leave here.”
+
+“Where are we going to go?”
+
+“Please don’t be that way, darling. We’ll go wherever you say. But
+please find some place to go right away.”
+
+“Switzerland is down the lake, we can go there.”
+
+“That will be lovely.”
+
+It was clouding over outside and the lake was darkening.
+
+“I wish we did not always have to live like criminals,” I said.
+
+“Darling, don’t be that way. You haven’t lived like a criminal very
+long. And we never live like criminals. We’re going to have a fine
+time.”
+
+“I feel like a criminal. I’ve deserted from the army.”
+
+“Darling, _please_ be sensible. It’s not deserting from the army. It’s
+only the Italian army.”
+
+I laughed. “You’re a fine girl. Let’s get back into bed. I feel fine in
+bed.”
+
+
+
+A little while later Catherine said, “You don’t feel like a criminal do
+you?”
+
+“No,” I said. “Not when I’m with you.”
+
+“You’re such a silly boy,” she said. “But I’ll look after you. Isn’t it
+splendid, darling, that I don’t have any morning-sickness?”
+
+“It’s grand.”
+
+“You don’t appreciate what a fine wife you have. But I don’t care. I’ll
+get you some place where they can’t arrest you and then we’ll have a
+lovely time.”
+
+“Let’s go there right away.”
+
+“We will, darling. I’ll go any place any time you wish.”
+
+“Let’s not think about anything.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXXV
+
+Catherine went along the lake to the little hotel to see Ferguson and I
+sat in the bar and read the papers. There were comfortable leather
+chairs in the bar and I sat in one of them and read until the barman
+came in. The army had not stood at the Tagliamento. They were falling
+back to the Piave. I remembered the Piave. The railroad crossed it near
+San Dona going up to the front. It was deep and slow there and quite
+narrow. Down below there were mosquito marshes and canals. There were
+some lovely villas. Once, before the war, going up to Cortina D’Ampezzo
+I had gone along it for several hours in the hills. Up there it looked
+like a trout stream, flowing swiftly with shallow stretches and pools
+under the shadow of the rocks. The road turned off from it at Cadore. I
+wondered how the army that was up there would come down. The barman came
+in.
+
+“Count Greffi was asking for you,” he said.
+
+“Who?”
+
+“Count Greffi. You remember the old man who was here when you were here
+before.”
+
+“Is he here?”
+
+“Yes, he’s here with his niece. I told him you were here. He wants you
+to play billiards.”
+
+“Where is he?”
+
+“He’s taking a walk.”
+
+“How is he?”
+
+“He’s younger than ever. He drank three champagne cocktails last night
+before dinner.”
+
+“How’s his billiard game?”
+
+“Good. He beat me. When I told him you were here he was very pleased.
+There’s nobody here for him to play with.”
+
+Count Greffi was ninety-four years old. He had been a contemporary of
+Metternich and was an old man with white hair and mustache and beautiful
+manners. He had been in the diplomatic service of both Austria and Italy
+and his birthday parties were the great social event of Milan. He was
+living to be one hundred years old and played a smoothly fluent game of
+billiards that contrasted with his own ninety-four-year-old brittleness.
+I had met him when I had been at Stresa once before out of season and
+while we played billiards we drank champagne. I thought it was a
+splendid custom and he gave me fifteen points in a hundred and beat me.
+
+“Why didn’t you tell me he was here?”
+
+“I forgot it.”
+
+“Who else is here?”
+
+“No one you know. There are only six people altogether.”
+
+“What are you doing now?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“Come on out fishing.”
+
+“I could come for an hour.”
+
+“Come on. Bring the trolling line.”
+
+The barman put on a coat and we went out. We went down and got a boat
+and I rowed while the barman sat in the stern and let out the line with
+a spinner and a heavy sinker on the end to troll for lake trout. We
+rowed along the shore, the barman holding the line in his hand and
+giving it occasional jerks forward. Stresa looked very deserted from the
+lake. There were the long rows of bare trees, the big hotels and the
+closed villas. I rowed across to Isola Bella and went close to the
+walls, where the water deepened sharply, and you saw the rock wall
+slanting down in the clear water, and then up and along to the
+fisherman’s island. The sun was under a cloud and the water was dark and
+smooth and very cold. We did not have a strike though we saw some
+circles on the water from rising fish.
+
+I rowed up opposite the fisherman’s island where there were boats drawn
+up and men were mending nets.
+
+“Should we get a drink?”
+
+“All right.”
+
+I brought the boat up to the stone pier and the barman pulled in the
+line, coiling it on the bottom of the boat and hooking the spinner on
+the edge of the gunwale. I stepped out and tied the boat. We went into a
+little café, sat at a bare wooden table and ordered vermouth.
+
+“Are you tired from rowing?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“I’ll row back,” he said.
+
+“I like to row.”
+
+“Maybe if you hold the line it will change the luck.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+“Tell me how goes the war.”
+
+“Rotten.”
+
+“I don’t have to go. I’m too old, like Count Greffi.”
+
+“Maybe you’ll have to go yet.”
+
+“Next year they’ll call my class. But I won’t go.”
+
+“What will you do?”
+
+“Get out of the country. I wouldn’t go to war. I was at the war once in
+Abyssinia. Nix. Why do you go?”
+
+“I don’t know. I was a fool.”
+
+“Have another vermouth?”
+
+“All right.”
+
+The barman rowed back. We trolled up the lake beyond Stresa and then
+down not far from shore. I held the taut line and felt the faint pulsing
+of the spinner revolving while I looked at the dark November water of
+the lake and the deserted shore. The barman rowed with long strokes and
+on the forward thrust of the boat the line throbbed. Once I had a
+strike: the line hardened suddenly and jerked back, I pulled and felt
+the live weight of the trout and then the line throbbed again. I had
+missed him.
+
+“Did he feel big?”
+
+“Pretty big.”
+
+“Once when I was out trolling alone I had the line in my teeth and one
+struck and nearly took my mouth out.”
+
+“The best way is to have it over your leg,” I said. “Then you feel it
+and don’t lose your teeth.”
+
+I put my hand in the water. It was very cold. We were almost opposite
+the hotel now.
+
+“I have to go in,” the barman said, “to be there for eleven o’clock.
+_L’heure du cocktail._”
+
+“All right.”
+
+I pulled in the line and wrapped it on a stick notched at each end. The
+barman put the boat in a little slip in the stone wall and locked it
+with a chain and padlock.
+
+“Any time you want it,” he said, “I’ll give you the key.”
+
+“Thanks.”
+
+We went up to the hotel and in to the bar. I did not want another drink
+so early in the morning so I went up to our room. The maid had just
+finished doing the room and Catherine was not back yet. I lay down on
+the bed and tried to keep from thinking.
+
+When Catherine came back it was all right again. Ferguson was
+downstairs, she said. She was coming to lunch.
+
+“I knew you wouldn’t mind,” Catherine said.
+
+“No,” I said.
+
+“What’s the matter, darling?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“I know. You haven’t anything to do. All you have is me and I go away.”
+
+“That’s true.”
+
+“I’m sorry, darling. I know it must be a dreadful feeling to have
+nothing at all suddenly.”
+
+“My life used to be full of everything,” I said. “Now if you aren’t with
+me I haven’t a thing in the world.”
+
+“But I’ll be with you. I was only gone for two hours. Isn’t there
+anything you can do?”
+
+“I went fishing with the barman.”
+
+“Wasn’t it fun?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Don’t think about me when I’m not here.”
+
+“That’s the way I worked it at the front. But there was something to do
+then.”
+
+“Othello with his occupation gone,” she teased.
+
+“Othello was a nigger,” I said. “Besides, I’m not jealous. I’m just so
+in love with you that there isn’t anything else.”
+
+“Will you be a good boy and be nice to Ferguson?”
+
+“I’m always nice to Ferguson unless she curses me.”
+
+“Be nice to her. Think how much we have and she hasn’t anything.”
+
+“I don’t think she wants what we have.”
+
+“You don’t know much, darling, for such a wise boy.”
+
+“I’ll be nice to her.”
+
+“I know you will. You’re so sweet.”
+
+“She won’t stay afterward, will she?”
+
+“No. I’ll get rid of her.”
+
+“And then we’ll come up here.”
+
+“Of course. What do you think I want to do?”
+
+We went downstairs to have lunch with Ferguson. She was very impressed
+by the hotel and the splendor of the dining-room. We had a good lunch
+with a couple of bottles of white capri. Count Greffi came into the
+dining-room and bowed to us. His niece, who looked a little like my
+grandmother, was with him. I told Catherine and Ferguson about him and
+Ferguson was very impressed. The hotel was very big and grand and empty
+but the food was good, the wine was very pleasant and finally the wine
+made us all feel very well. Catherine had no need to feel any better.
+She was very happy. Ferguson became quite cheerful. I felt very well
+myself. After lunch Ferguson went back to her hotel. She was going to
+lie down for a while after lunch she said.
+
+Along late in the afternoon some one knocked on our door.
+
+“Who is it?”
+
+“The Count Greffi wishes to know if you will play billiards with him.”
+
+I looked at my watch; I had taken it off and it was under the pillow.
+
+“Do you have to go, darling?” Catherine whispered.
+
+“I think I’d better.” The watch was a quarter-past four o’clock. Out
+loud I said, “Tell the Count Greffi I will be in the billiard-room at
+five o’clock.”
+
+At a quarter to five I kissed Catherine good-by and went into the
+bathroom to dress. Knotting my tie and looking in the glass I looked
+strange to myself in the civilian clothes. I must remember to buy some
+more shirts and socks.
+
+“Will you be away a long time?” Catherine asked. She looked lovely in
+the bed. “Would you hand me the brush?”
+
+I watched her brushing her hair, holding her head so the weight of her
+hair all came on one side. It was dark outside and the light over the
+head of the bed shone on her hair and on her neck and shoulders. I went
+over and kissed her and held her hand with the brush and her head sunk
+back on the pillow. I kissed her neck and shoulders. I felt faint with
+loving her so much.
+
+“I don’t want to go away.”
+
+“I don’t want you to go away.”
+
+“I won’t go then.”
+
+“Yes. Go. It’s only for a little while and then you’ll come back.”
+
+“We’ll have dinner up here.”
+
+“Hurry and come back.”
+
+I found the Count Greffi in the billiard-room. He was practising
+strokes, looking very fragile under the light that came down above the
+billiard table. On a card table a little way beyond the light was a
+silver icing-bucket with the necks and corks of two champagne bottles
+showing above the ice. The Count Greffi straightened up when I came
+toward the table and walked toward me. He put out his hand, “It is such
+a great pleasure that you are here. You were very kind to come to play
+with me.”
+
+“It was very nice of you to ask me.”
+
+“Are you quite well? They told me you were wounded on the Isonzo. I hope
+you are well again.”
+
+“I’m very well. Have you been well?”
+
+“Oh, I am always well. But I am getting old. I detect signs of age now.”
+
+“I can’t believe it.”
+
+“Yes. Do you want to know one? It is easier for me to talk Italian. I
+discipline myself but I find when I am tired that it is so much easier
+to talk Italian. So I know I must be getting old.”
+
+“We could talk Italian. I am a little tired too.”
+
+“Oh, but when you are tired it will be easier for you to talk English.”
+
+“American.”
+
+“Yes. American. You will please talk American. It is a delightful
+language.”
+
+“I hardly ever see Americans.”
+
+“You must miss them. One misses one’s countrymen and especially one’s
+countrywomen. I know that experience. Should we play or are you too
+tired?”
+
+“I’m not really tired. I said that for a joke. What handicap will you
+give me?”
+
+“Have you been playing very much?”
+
+“None at all.”
+
+“You play very well. Ten points in a hundred?”
+
+“You flatter me.”
+
+“Fifteen?”
+
+“That would be fine but you will beat me.”
+
+“Should we play for a stake? You always wished to play for a stake.”
+
+“I think we’d better.”
+
+“All right. I will give you eighteen points and we will play for a franc
+a point.”
+
+He played a lovely game of billiards and with the handicap I was only
+four ahead at fifty. Count Greffi pushed a button on the wall to ring
+for the barman.
+
+“Open one bottle please,” he said. Then to me, “We will take a little
+stimulant.” The wine was icy cold and very dry and good.
+
+“Should we talk Italian? Would you mind very much? It is my great
+weakness now.”
+
+We went on playing, sipping the wine between shots, speaking in Italian,
+but talking little, concentrated on the game. Count Greffi made his one
+hundredth point and with the handicap I was only at ninety-four. He
+smiled and patted me on the shoulder.
+
+“Now we will drink the other bottle and you will tell me about the war.”
+He waited for me to sit down.
+
+“About anything else,” I said.
+
+“You don’t want to talk about it? Good. What have you been reading?”
+
+“Nothing,” I said. “I’m afraid I am very dull.”
+
+“No. But you should read.”
+
+“What is there written in war-time?”
+
+“There is ‘Le Feu’ by a Frenchman, Barbusse. There is ‘Mr. Britling Sees
+Through It.’”
+
+“No, he doesn’t.”
+
+“What?”
+
+“He doesn’t see through it. Those books were at the hospital.”
+
+“Then you have been reading?”
+
+“Yes, but nothing any good.”
+
+“I thought ‘Mr. Britling’ a very good study of the English middle-class
+soul.”
+
+“I don’t know about the soul.”
+
+“Poor boy. We none of us know about the soul. Are you _Croyant_?”
+
+“At night.”
+
+Count Greffi smiled and turned the glass with his fingers. “I had
+expected to become more devout as I grow older but somehow I haven’t,”
+he said. “It is a great pity.”
+
+“Would you like to live after death?” I asked and instantly felt a fool
+to mention death. But he did not mind the word.
+
+“It would depend on the life. This life is very pleasant. I would like
+to live forever,” he smiled. “I very nearly have.”
+
+We were sitting in the deep leather chairs, the champagne in the
+ice-bucket and our glasses on the table between us.
+
+“If you ever live to be as old as I am you will find many things
+strange.”
+
+“You never seem old.”
+
+“It is the body that is old. Sometimes I am afraid I will break off a
+finger as one breaks a stick of chalk. And the spirit is no older and
+not much wiser.”
+
+“You are wise.”
+
+“No, that is the great fallacy; the wisdom of old men. They do not grow
+wise. They grow careful.”
+
+“Perhaps that is wisdom.”
+
+“It is a very unattractive wisdom. What do you value most?”
+
+“Some one I love.”
+
+“With me it is the same. That is not wisdom. Do you value life?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“So do I. Because it is all I have. And to give birthday parties,” he
+laughed. “You are probably wiser than I am. You do not give birthday
+parties.”
+
+We both drank the wine.
+
+“What do you think of the war really?” I asked.
+
+“I think it is stupid.”
+
+“Who will win it?”
+
+“Italy.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“They are a younger nation.”
+
+“Do younger nations always win wars?”
+
+“They are apt to for a time.”
+
+“Then what happens?”
+
+“They become older nations.”
+
+“You said you were not wise.”
+
+“Dear boy, that is not wisdom. That is cynicism.”
+
+“It sounds very wise to me.”
+
+“It’s not particularly. I could quote you the examples on the other
+side. But it is not bad. Have we finished the champagne?”
+
+“Almost.”
+
+“Should we drink some more? Then I must dress.”
+
+“Perhaps we’d better not now.”
+
+“You are sure you don’t want more?”
+
+“Yes.” He stood up.
+
+“I hope you will be very fortunate and very happy and very, very
+healthy.”
+
+“Thank you. And I hope you will live forever.”
+
+“Thank you. I have. And if you ever become devout pray for me if I am
+dead. I am asking several of my friends to do that. I had expected to
+become devout myself but it has not come.” I thought he smiled sadly but
+I could not tell. He was so old and his face was very wrinkled, so that
+a smile used so many lines that all gradations were lost.
+
+“I might become very devout,” I said. “Anyway, I will pray for you.”
+
+“I had always expected to become devout. All my family died very devout.
+But somehow it does not come.”
+
+“It’s too early.”
+
+“Maybe it is too late. Perhaps I have outlived my religious feeling.”
+
+“My own comes only at night.”
+
+“Then too you are in love. Do not forget that is a religious feeling.”
+
+“You believe so?”
+
+“Of course.” He took a step toward the table. “You were very kind to
+play.”
+
+“It was a great pleasure.”
+
+“We will walk upstairs together.”
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+That night there was a storm and I woke to hear the rain lashing the
+window-panes. It was coming in the open window. Some one had knocked on
+the door. I went to the door very softly, not to disturb Catherine, and
+opened it. The barman stood there. He wore his overcoat and carried his
+wet hat.
+
+“Can I speak to you, Tenente?”
+
+“What’s the matter?”
+
+“It’s a very serious matter.”
+
+I looked around. The room was dark. I saw the water on the floor from
+the window. “Come in,” I said. I took him by the arm into the bathroom;
+locked the door and put on the light. I sat down on the edge of the
+bathtub.
+
+“What’s the matter, Emilio? Are you in trouble?”
+
+“No. You are, Tenente.”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“They are going to arrest you in the morning.”
+
+“Yes?”
+
+“I came to tell you. I was out in the town and I heard them talking in a
+café.”
+
+“I see.”
+
+He stood there, his coat wet, holding his wet hat and said nothing.
+
+“Why are they going to arrest me?”
+
+“For something about the war.”
+
+“Do you know what?”
+
+“No. But I know that they know you were here before as an officer and
+now you are here out of uniform. After this retreat they arrest
+everybody.”
+
+I thought a minute.
+
+“What time do they come to arrest me?”
+
+“In the morning. I don’t know the time.”
+
+“What do you say to do?”
+
+He put his hat in the washbowl. It was very wet and had been dripping on
+the floor.
+
+“If you have nothing to fear an arrest is nothing. But it is always bad
+to be arrested—especially now.”
+
+“I don’t want to be arrested.”
+
+“Then go to Switzerland.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“In my boat.”
+
+“There is a storm,” I said.
+
+“The storm is over. It is rough but you will be all right.”
+
+“When should we go?”
+
+“Right away. They might come to arrest you early in the morning.”
+
+“What about our bags?”
+
+“Get them packed. Get your lady dressed. I will take care of them.”
+
+“Where will you be?”
+
+“I will wait here. I don’t want any one to see me outside in the hall.”
+
+I opened the door, closed it, and went into the bedroom. Catherine was
+awake.
+
+“What is it, darling?”
+
+“It’s all right, Cat,” I said. “Would you like to get dressed right away
+and go in a boat to Switzerland?”
+
+“Would you?”
+
+“No,” I said. “I’d like to go back to bed.”
+
+“What is it about?”
+
+“The barman says they are going to arrest me in the morning.”
+
+“Is the barman crazy?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Then please hurry, darling, and get dressed so we can start.” She sat
+up on the side of the bed. She was still sleepy. “Is that the barman in
+the bathroom?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then I won’t wash. Please look the other way, darling, and I’ll be
+dressed in just a minute.”
+
+I saw her white back as she took off her nightgown and then I looked
+away because she wanted me to. She was beginning to be a little big with
+the child and she did not want me to see her. I dressed hearing the rain
+on the windows. I did not have much to put in my bag.
+
+“There’s plenty of room in my bag, Cat, if you need any.”
+
+“I’m almost packed,” she said. “Darling, I’m awfully stupid, but why is
+the barman in the bathroom?”
+
+“Sh—he’s waiting to take our bags down.”
+
+“He’s awfully nice.”
+
+“He’s an old friend,” I said. “I nearly sent him some pipe-tobacco
+once.”
+
+I looked out the open window at the dark night. I could not see the
+lake, only the dark and the rain but the wind was quieter.
+
+“I’m ready, darling,” Catherine said.
+
+“All right.” I went to the bathroom door. “Here are the bags, Emilio,” I
+said. The barman took the two bags.
+
+“You’re very good to help us,” Catherine said.
+
+“That’s nothing, lady,” the barman said. “I’m glad to help you just so I
+don’t get in trouble myself. Listen,” he said to me. “I’ll take these
+out the servants’ stairs and to the boat. You just go out as though you
+were going for a walk.”
+
+“It’s a lovely night for a walk,” Catherine said.
+
+“It’s a bad night all right.”
+
+“I’m glad I’ve an umbrella,” Catherine said.
+
+We walked down the hall and down the wide thickly carpeted stairs. At
+the foot of the stairs by the door the porter sat behind his desk.
+
+He looked surprised at seeing us.
+
+“You’re not going out, sir?” he said.
+
+“Yes,” I said. “We’re going to see the storm along the lake.”
+
+“Haven’t you got an umbrella, sir?”
+
+“No,” I said. “This coat sheds water.”
+
+He looked at it doubtfully. “I’ll get you an umbrella, sir,” he said. He
+went away and came back with a big umbrella. “It is a little big, sir,”
+he said. I gave him a ten-lira note. “Oh you are too good, sir. Thank
+you very much,” he said. He held the door open and we went out into the
+rain. He smiled at Catherine and she smiled at him. “Don’t stay out in
+the storm,” he said. “You will get wet, sir and lady.” He was only the
+second porter, and his English was still literally translated.
+
+“We’ll be back,” I said. We walked down the path under the giant
+umbrella and out through the dark wet gardens to the road and across the
+road to the trellised pathway along the lake. The wind was blowing
+offshore now. It was a cold, wet November wind and I knew it was snowing
+in the mountains. We came along past the chained boats in the slips
+along the quay to where the barman’s boat should be. The water was dark
+against the stone. The barman stepped out from beside the row of trees.
+
+“The bags are in the boat,” he said.
+
+“I want to pay you for the boat,” I said.
+
+“How much money have you?”
+
+“Not so much.”
+
+“You send me the money later. That will be all right.”
+
+“How much?”
+
+“What you want.”
+
+“Tell me how much.”
+
+“If you get through send me five hundred francs. You won’t mind that if
+you get through.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+“Here are sandwiches.” He handed me a package. “Everything there was in
+the bar. It’s all here. This is a bottle of brandy and a bottle of
+wine.” I put them in my bag. “Let me pay you for those.”
+
+“All right, give me fifty lire.”
+
+I gave it to him. “The brandy is good,” he said. “You don’t need to be
+afraid to give it to your lady. She better get in the boat.” He held the
+boat, it rising and falling against the stone wall and I helped
+Catherine in. She sat in the stern and pulled her cape around her.
+
+“You know where to go?”
+
+“Up the lake.”
+
+“You know how far?”
+
+“Past Luino.”
+
+“Past Luino, Cannero, Cannobio, Tranzano. You aren’t in Switzerland
+until you come to Brissago. You have to pass Monte Tamara.”
+
+“What time is it?” Catherine asked.
+
+“It’s only eleven o’clock,” I said.
+
+“If you row all the time you ought to be there by seven o’clock in the
+morning.”
+
+“Is it that far?”
+
+“It’s thirty-five kilometres.”
+
+“How should we go? In this rain we need a compass.”
+
+“No. Row to Isola Bella. Then on the other side of Isola Madre go with
+the wind. The wind will take you to Pallanza. You will see the lights.
+Then go up the shore.”
+
+“Maybe the wind will change.”
+
+“No,” he said. “This wind will blow like this for three days. It comes
+straight down from the Mattarone. There is a can to bail with.”
+
+“Let me pay you something for the boat now.”
+
+“No, I’d rather take a chance. If you get through you pay me all you
+can.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+“I don’t think you’ll get drowned.”
+
+“That’s good.”
+
+“Go with the wind up the lake.”
+
+“All right.” I stepped in the boat.
+
+“Did you leave the money for the hotel?”
+
+“Yes. In an envelope in the room.”
+
+“All right. Good luck, Tenente.”
+
+“Good luck. We thank you many times.”
+
+“You won’t thank me if you get drowned.”
+
+“What does he say?” Catherine asked.
+
+“He says good luck.”
+
+“Good luck,” Catherine said. “Thank you very much.”
+
+“Are you ready?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+He bent down and shoved us off. I dug at the water with the oars, then
+waved one hand. The barman waved back deprecatingly. I saw the lights of
+the hotel and rowed out, rowing straight out until they were out of
+sight. There was quite a sea running but we were going with the wind.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+I rowed in the dark keeping the wind in my face. The rain had stopped
+and only came occasionally in gusts. It was very dark, and the wind was
+cold. I could see Catherine in the stern but I could not see the water
+where the blades of the oars dipped. The oars were long and there were
+no leathers to keep them from slipping out. I pulled, raised, leaned
+forward, found the water, dipped and pulled, rowing as easily as I
+could. I did not feather the oars because the wind was with us. I knew
+my hands would blister and I wanted to delay it as long as I could. The
+boat was light and rowed easily. I pulled it along in the dark water. I
+could not see, and hoped we would soon come opposite Pallanza.
+
+We never saw Pallanza. The wind was blowing up the lake and we passed
+the point that hides Pallanza in the dark and never saw the lights. When
+we finally saw some lights much further up the lake and close to the
+shore it was Intra. But for a long time we did not see any lights, nor
+did we see the shore but rowed steadily in the dark riding with the
+waves. Sometimes I missed the water with the oars in the dark as a wave
+lifted the boat. It was quite rough; but I kept on rowing, until
+suddenly we were close ashore against a point of rock that rose beside
+us; the waves striking against it, rushing high up, then falling back. I
+pulled hard on the right oar and backed water with the other and we went
+out into the lake again; the point was out of sight and we were going on
+up the lake.
+
+“We’re across the lake,” I said to Catherine.
+
+“Weren’t we going to see Pallanza?”
+
+“We’ve missed it.”
+
+“How are you, darling?”
+
+“I’m fine.”
+
+“I could take the oars awhile.”
+
+“No, I’m fine.”
+
+“Poor Ferguson,” Catherine said. “In the morning she’ll come to the
+hotel and find we’re gone.”
+
+“I’m not worrying so much about that,” I said, “as about getting into
+the Swiss part of the lake before it’s daylight and the custom guards
+see us.”
+
+“Is it a long way?”
+
+“It’s thirty some kilometres from here.”
+
+
+
+I rowed all night. Finally my hands were so sore I could hardly close
+them over the oars. We were nearly smashed up on the shore several
+times. I kept fairly close to the shore because I was afraid of getting
+lost on the lake and losing time. Sometimes we were so close we could
+see a row of trees and the road along the shore with the mountains
+behind. The rain stopped and the wind drove the clouds so that the moon
+shone through and looking back I could see the long dark point of
+Castagnola and the lake with white-caps and beyond, the moon on the high
+snow mountains. Then the clouds came over the moon again and the
+mountains and the lake were gone, but it was much lighter than it had
+been before and we could see the shore. I could see it too clearly and
+pulled out where they would not see the boat if there were custom guards
+along the Pallanza road. When the moon came out again we could see white
+villas on the shore on the slopes of the mountain and the white road
+where it showed through the trees. All the time I was rowing.
+
+The lake widened and across it on the shore at the foot of the mountains
+on the other side we saw a few lights that should be Luino. I saw a
+wedgelike gap between the mountains on the other shore and I thought
+that must be Luino. If it was we were making good time. I pulled in the
+oars and lay back on the seat. I was very, very tired of rowing. My arms
+and shoulders and back ached and my hands were sore.
+
+“I could hold the umbrella,” Catherine said. “We could sail with that
+with the wind.”
+
+“Can you steer?”
+
+“I think so.”
+
+“You take this oar and hold it under your arm close to the side of the
+boat and steer and I’ll hold the umbrella.” I went back to the stern and
+showed her how to hold the oar. I took the big umbrella the porter had
+given me and sat facing the bow and opened it. It opened with a clap. I
+held it on both sides, sitting astride the handle hooked over the seat.
+The wind was full in it and I felt the boat suck forward while I held as
+hard as I could to the two edges. It pulled hard. The boat was moving
+fast.
+
+“We’re going beautifully,” Catherine said. All I could see was umbrella
+ribs. The umbrella strained and pulled and I felt us driving along with
+it. I braced my feet and held back on it, then suddenly, it buckled; I
+felt a rib snap on my forehead, I tried to grab the top that was bending
+with the wind and the whole thing buckled and went inside-out and I was
+astride the handle of an inside-out, ripped umbrella, where I had been
+holding a wind-filled pulling sail. I unhooked the handle from the seat,
+laid the umbrella in the bow and went back to Catherine for the oar. She
+was laughing. She took my hand and kept on laughing.
+
+“What’s the matter?” I took the oar.
+
+“You looked so funny holding that thing.”
+
+“I suppose so.”
+
+“Don’t be cross, darling. It was awfully funny. You looked about twenty
+feet broad and very affectionate holding the umbrella by the edges—”
+she choked.
+
+“I’ll row.”
+
+“Take a rest and a drink. It’s a grand night and we’ve come a long way.”
+
+“I have to keep the boat out of the trough of the waves.”
+
+“I’ll get you a drink. Then rest a little while, darling.”
+
+I held the oars up and we sailed with them. Catherine was opening the
+bag. She handed me the brandy bottle. I pulled the cork with my
+pocket-knife and took a long drink. It was smooth and hot and the heat
+went all through me and I felt warmed and cheerful. “It’s lovely
+brandy,” I said. The moon was under again but I could see the shore.
+There seemed to be another point going out a long way ahead into the
+lake.
+
+“Are you warm enough, Cat?”
+
+“I’m splendid. I’m a little stiff.”
+
+“Bail out that water and you can put your feet down.”
+
+Then I rowed and listened to the oarlocks and the dip and scrape of the
+bailing tin under the stern seat.
+
+“Would you give me the bailer?” I said. “I want a drink.”
+
+“It’s awfully dirty.”
+
+“That’s all right. I’ll rinse it.”
+
+I heard Catherine rinsing it over the side. Then she handed it to me
+dipped full of water. I was thirsty after the brandy and the water was
+icy cold, so cold it made my teeth ache. I looked toward the shore. We
+were closer to the long point. There were lights in the bay ahead.
+
+“Thanks,” I said and handed back the tin pail.
+
+“You’re ever so welcome,” Catherine said. “There’s much more if you want
+it.”
+
+“Don’t you want to eat something?”
+
+“No. I’ll be hungry in a little while. We’ll save it till then.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+What looked like a point ahead was a long high headland. I went further
+out in the lake to pass it. The lake was much narrower now. The moon was
+out again and the _guardia di Finanza_ could have seen our boat black on
+the water if they had been watching.
+
+“How are you, Cat?” I asked.
+
+“I’m all right. Where are we?”
+
+“I don’t think we have more than about eight miles more.”
+
+“That’s a long way to row, you poor sweet. Aren’t you dead?”
+
+“No. I’m all right. My hands are sore is all.”
+
+We went on up the lake. There was a break in the mountains on the right
+bank, a flattening-out with a low shore-line that I thought must be
+Cannobio. I stayed a long way out because it was from now on that we ran
+the most danger of meeting _guardia_. There was a high dome-capped
+mountain on the other shore a way ahead. I was tired. It was no great
+distance to row but when you were out of condition it had been a long
+way. I knew I had to pass that mountain and go up the lake at least five
+miles further before we would be in Swiss water. The moon was almost
+down now but before it went down the sky clouded over again and it was
+very dark. I stayed well out in the lake, rowing awhile, then resting
+and holding the oars so that the wind struck the blades.
+
+“Let me row awhile,” Catherine said.
+
+“I don’t think you ought to.”
+
+“Nonsense. It would be good for me. It would keep me from being too
+stiff.”
+
+“I don’t think you should, Cat.”
+
+“Nonsense. Rowing in moderation is very good for the pregnant lady.”
+
+“All right, you row a little moderately. I’ll go back, then you come up.
+Hold on to both gunwales when you come up.”
+
+I sat in the stern with my coat on and the collar turned up and watched
+Catherine row. She rowed very well but the oars were too long and
+bothered her. I opened the bag and ate a couple of sandwiches and took a
+drink of the brandy. It made everything much better and I took another
+drink.
+
+“Tell me when you’re tired,” I said. Then a little later, “watch out the
+oar doesn’t pop you in the tummy.”
+
+“If it did”—Catherine said between strokes—“life might be much
+simpler.”
+
+I took another drink of the brandy.
+
+“How are you going?”
+
+“All right.”
+
+“Tell me when you want to stop.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+I took another drink of the brandy, then took hold of the two gunwales
+of the boat and moved forward.
+
+“No. I’m going beautifully.”
+
+“Go on back to the stern. I’ve had a grand rest.”
+
+For a while, with the brandy, I rowed easily and steadily. Then I began
+to catch crabs and soon I was just chopping along again with a thin
+brown taste of bile from having rowed too hard after the brandy.
+
+“Give me a drink of water, will you?” I said.
+
+“That’s easy,” Catherine said.
+
+Before daylight it started to drizzle. The wind was down or we were
+protected by mountains that bounded the curve the lake had made. When I
+knew daylight was coming I settled down and rowed hard. I did not know
+where we were and I wanted to get into the Swiss part of the lake. When
+it was beginning to be daylight we were quite close to the shore. I
+could see the rocky shore and the trees.
+
+“What’s that?” Catherine said. I rested on the oars and listened. It was
+a motor boat chugging out on the lake. I pulled close up to the shore
+and lay quiet. The chugging came closer; then we saw the motor boat in
+the rain a little astern of us. There were four _guardia_ _di finanza_
+in the stern, their _alpini_ hats pulled down, their cape collars turned
+up and their carbines slung across their backs. They all looked sleepy
+so early in the morning. I could see the yellow on their hats and the
+yellow marks on their cape collars. The motor boat chugged on and out of
+sight in the rain.
+
+I pulled out into the lake. If we were that close to the border I did
+not want to be hailed by a sentry along the road. I stayed out where I
+could just see the shore and rowed on for three-quarters of an hour in
+the rain. We heard a motor boat once more but I kept quiet until the
+noise of the engine went away across the lake.
+
+“I think we’re in Switzerland, Cat,” I said.
+
+“Really?”
+
+“There’s no way to know until we see Swiss troops.”
+
+“Or the Swiss navy.”
+
+“The Swiss navy’s no joke for us. That last motor boat we heard was
+probably the Swiss navy.”
+
+“If we’re in Switzerland let’s have a big breakfast. They have wonderful
+rolls and butter and jam in Switzerland.”
+
+
+
+It was clear daylight now and a fine rain was falling. The wind was
+still blowing outside up the lake and we could see the tops of the
+white-caps going away from us and up the lake. I was sure we were in
+Switzerland now. There were many houses back in the trees from the shore
+and up the shore a way was a village with stone houses, some villas on
+the hills and a church. I had been looking at the road that skirted the
+shore for guards but did not see any. The road came quite close to the
+lake now and I saw a soldier coming out of a café on the road. He wore a
+gray-green uniform and a helmet like the Germans. He had a
+healthy-looking face and a little toothbrush mustache. He looked at us.
+
+“Wave to him,” I said to Catherine. She waved and the soldier smiled
+embarrassedly and gave a wave of his hand. I eased up rowing. We were
+passing the waterfront of the village.
+
+“We must be well inside the border,” I said.
+
+“We want to be sure, darling. We don’t want them to turn us back at the
+frontier.”
+
+“The frontier is a long way back. I think this is the customs town. I’m
+pretty sure it’s Brissago.”
+
+“Won’t there be Italians there? There are always both sides at a customs
+town.”
+
+“Not in war-time. I don’t think they let the Italians cross the
+frontier.”
+
+It was a nice-looking little town. There were many fishing boats along
+the quay and nets were spread on racks. There was a fine November rain
+falling but it looked cheerful and clean even with the rain.
+
+“Should we land then and have breakfast?”
+
+“All right.”
+
+I pulled hard on the left oar and came in close, then straightened out
+when we were close to the quay and brought the boat alongside. I pulled
+in the oars, took hold of an iron ring, stepped up on the wet stone and
+was in Switzerland. I tied the boat and held my hand down to Catherine.
+
+“Come on up, Cat. It’s a grand feeling.”
+
+“What about the bags?”
+
+“Leave them in the boat.”
+
+Catherine stepped up and we were in Switzerland together.
+
+“What a lovely country,” she said.
+
+“Isn’t it grand?”
+
+“Let’s go and have breakfast!”
+
+“Isn’t it a grand country? I love the way it feels under my shoes.”
+
+“I’m so stiff I can’t feel it very well. But it feels like a splendid
+country. Darling, do you realize we’re here and out of that bloody
+place?”
+
+“I do. I really do. I’ve never realized anything before.”
+
+“Look at the houses. Isn’t this a fine square? There’s a place we can
+get breakfast.”
+
+“Isn’t the rain fine? They never had rain like this in Italy. It’s
+cheerful rain.”
+
+“And we’re here, darling! Do you realize we’re here?”
+
+We went inside the café and sat down at a clean wooden table. We were
+cockeyed excited. A splendid clean-looking woman with an apron came and
+asked us what we wanted.
+
+“Rolls and jam and coffee,” Catherine said.
+
+“I’m sorry, we haven’t any rolls in war-time.”
+
+“Bread then.”
+
+“I can make you some toast.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+“I want some eggs fried too.”
+
+“How many eggs for the gentleman?”
+
+“Three.”
+
+“Take four, darling.”
+
+“Four eggs.”
+
+The woman went away. I kissed Catherine and held her hand very tight. We
+looked at each other and at the café.
+
+“Darling, darling, isn’t it lovely?”
+
+“It’s grand,” I said.
+
+“I don’t mind there not being rolls,” Catherine said. “I thought about
+them all night. But I don’t mind it. I don’t mind it at all.”
+
+“I suppose pretty soon they will arrest us.”
+
+“Never mind, darling. We’ll have breakfast first. You won’t mind being
+arrested after breakfast. And then there’s nothing they can do to us.
+We’re British and American citizens in good standing.”
+
+“You have a passport, haven’t you?”
+
+“Of course. Oh let’s not talk about it. Let’s be happy.”
+
+“I couldn’t be any happier,” I said. A fat gray cat with a tail that
+lifted like a plume crossed the floor to our table and curved against my
+leg to purr each time she rubbed. I reached down and stroked her.
+Catherine smiled at me very happily. “Here comes the coffee,” she said.
+
+
+
+They arrested us after breakfast. We took a little walk through the
+village then went down to the quay to get our bags. A soldier was
+standing guard over the boat.
+
+“Is this your boat?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Where do you come from?”
+
+“Up the lake.”
+
+“Then I have to ask you to come with me.”
+
+“How about the bags?”
+
+“You can carry the bags.”
+
+I carried the bags and Catherine walked beside me and the soldier walked
+along behind us to the old custom house. In the custom house a
+lieutenant, very thin and military, questioned us.
+
+“What nationality are you?”
+
+“American and British.”
+
+“Let me see your passports.”
+
+I gave him mine and Catherine got hers out of her handbag.
+
+He examined them for a long time.
+
+“Why do you enter Switzerland this way in a boat?”
+
+“I am a sportsman,” I said. “Rowing is my great sport. I always row when
+I get a chance.”
+
+“Why do you come here?”
+
+“For the winter sport. We are tourists and we want to do the winter
+sport.”
+
+“This is no place for winter sport.”
+
+“We know it. We want to go where they have the winter sport.”
+
+“What have you been doing in Italy?”
+
+“I have been studying architecture. My cousin has been studying art.”
+
+“Why do you leave there?”
+
+“We want to do the winter sport. With the war going on you cannot study
+architecture.”
+
+“You will please stay where you are,” the lieutenant said. He went back
+into the building with our passports.
+
+“You’re splendid, darling,” Catherine said. “Keep on the same track. You
+want to do the winter sport.”
+
+“Do you know anything about art?”
+
+“Rubens,” said Catherine.
+
+“Large and fat,” I said.
+
+“Titian,” Catherine said.
+
+“Titian-haired,” I said. “How about Mantegna?”
+
+“Don’t ask hard ones,” Catherine said. “I know him though—very bitter.”
+
+“Very bitter,” I said. “Lots of nail holes.”
+
+“You see I’ll make you a fine wife,” Catherine said. “I’ll be able to
+talk art with your customers.”
+
+“Here he comes,” I said. The thin lieutenant came down the length of the
+custom house, holding our passports.
+
+“I will have to send you into Locarno,” he said. “You can get a carriage
+and a soldier will go in with you.”
+
+“All right,” I said. “What about the boat?”
+
+“The boat is confiscated. What have you in those bags?”
+
+He went all through the two bags and held up the quarter-bottle of
+brandy. “Would you join me in a drink?” I asked.
+
+“No thank you.” He straightened up. “How much money have you?”
+
+“Twenty-five hundred lire.”
+
+He was favorably impressed. “How much has your cousin?”
+
+Catherine had a little over twelve hundred lire. The lieutenant was
+pleased. His attitude toward us became less haughty.
+
+“If you are going for winter sports,” he said, “Wengen is the place. My
+father has a very fine hotel at Wengen. It is open all the time.”
+
+“That’s splendid,” I said. “Could you give me the name?”
+
+“I will write it on a card.” He handed me the card very politely.
+
+“The soldier will take you in to Locarno. He will keep your passports. I
+regret this but it is necessary. I have good hopes they will give you a
+visa or a police permit at Locarno.”
+
+He handed the two passports to the soldier and carrying the bags we
+started into the village to order a carriage. “Hi,” the lieutenant
+called to the soldier. He said something in a German dialect to him. The
+soldier slung his rifle on his back and picked up the bags.
+
+“It’s a great country,” I said to Catherine.
+
+“It’s so practical.”
+
+“Thank you very much,” I said to the lieutenant. He waved his hand.
+
+_“Service!_” he said. We followed our guard into the village.
+
+We drove to Locarno in a carriage with the soldier sitting on the front
+seat with the driver. At Locarno we did not have a bad time. They
+questioned us but they were polite because we had passports and money. I
+do not think they believed a word of the story and I thought it was
+silly but it was like a law-court. You did not want something
+reasonable, you wanted something technical and then stuck to it without
+explanations. But we had passports and we would spend the money. So they
+gave us provisional visas. At any time this visa might be withdrawn. We
+were to report to the police wherever we went.
+
+Could we go wherever we wanted? Yes. Where did we want to go?
+
+“Where do you want to go, Cat?”
+
+“Montreux.”
+
+“It is a very nice place,” the official said. “I think you will like
+that place.”
+
+“Here at Locarno is a very nice place,” another official said. “I am
+sure you would like it here very much at Locarno. Locarno is a very
+attractive place.”
+
+“We would like some place where there is winter sport.”
+
+“There is no winter sport at Montreux.”
+
+“I beg your pardon,” the other official said. “I come from Montreux.
+There is very certainly winter sport on the Montreux Oberland Bernois
+railway. It would be false for you to deny that.”
+
+“I do not deny it. I simply said there is no winter sport at Montreux.”
+
+“I question that,” the other official said. “I question that statement.”
+
+“I hold to that statement.”
+
+“I question that statement. I myself have _luge-ed_ into the streets of
+Montreux. I have done it not once but several times. Luge-ing is
+certainly winter sport.”
+
+The other official turned to me.
+
+“Is luge-ing your idea of winter sport, sir? I tell you you would be
+very comfortable here in Locarno. You would find the climate healthy,
+you would find the environs attractive. You would like it very much.”
+
+“The gentleman has expressed a wish to go to Montreux.”
+
+“What is luge-ing?” I asked.
+
+“You see he has never even heard of luge-ing!”
+
+That meant a great deal to the second official. He was pleased by that.
+
+“Luge-ing,” said the first official, “is tobogganing.”
+
+“I beg to differ,” the other official shook his head. “I must differ
+again. The toboggan is very different from the luge. The toboggan is
+constructed in Canada of flat laths. The luge is a common sled with
+runners. Accuracy means something.”
+
+“Couldn’t we toboggan?” I asked.
+
+“Of course you could toboggan,” the first official said. “You could
+toboggan very well. Excellent Canadian toboggans are sold in Montreux.
+Ochs Brothers sell toboggans. They import their own toboggans.”
+
+The second official turned away. “Tobogganing,” he said, “requires a
+special _piste_. You could not toboggan into the streets of Montreux.
+Where are you stopping here?”
+
+“We don’t know,” I said. “We just drove in from Brissago. The carriage
+is outside.”
+
+“You make no mistake in going to Montreux,” the first official said.
+“You will find the climate delightful and beautiful. You will have no
+distance to go for winter sport.”
+
+“If you really want winter sport,” the second official said, “you will
+go to the Engadine or to Mürren. I must protest against your being
+advised to go to Montreux for the winter sport.”
+
+“At Les Avants above Montreux there is excellent winter sport of every
+sort.” The champion of Montreux glared at his colleague.
+
+“Gentlemen,” I said, “I am afraid we must go. My cousin is very tired.
+We will go tentatively to Montreux.”
+
+“I congratulate you,” the first official shook my hand.
+
+“I believe that you will regret leaving Locarno,” the second official
+said. “At any rate you will report to the police at Montreux.”
+
+“There will be no unpleasantness with the police,” the first official
+assured me. “You will find all the inhabitants extremely courteous and
+friendly.”
+
+“Thank you both very much,” I said. “We appreciate your advice very
+much.”
+
+“Good-by,” Catherine said. “Thank you both very much.”
+
+They bowed us to the door, the champion of Locarno a little coldly. We
+went down the steps and into the carriage.
+
+“My God, darling,” Catherine said. “Couldn’t we have gotten away any
+sooner?” I gave the name of a hotel one of the officials had recommended
+to the driver. He picked up the reins.
+
+“You’ve forgotten the army,” Catherine said. The soldier was standing by
+the carriage. I gave him a ten-lira note. “I have no Swiss money yet,” I
+said. He thanked me, saluted and went off. The carriage started and we
+drove to the hotel.
+
+“How did you happen to pick out Montreux?” I asked Catherine. “Do you
+really want to go there?”
+
+“It was the first place I could think of,” she said. “It’s not a bad
+place. We can find some place up in the mountains.”
+
+“Are you sleepy?”
+
+“I’m asleep right now.”
+
+“We’ll get a good sleep. Poor Cat, you had a long bad night.”
+
+“I had a lovely time,” Catherine said. “Especially when you sailed with
+the umbrella.”
+
+“Can you realize we’re in Switzerland?”
+
+“No, I’m afraid I’ll wake up and it won’t be true.”
+
+“I am too.”
+
+“It is true, isn’t it, darling? I’m not just driving down to the
+_stazione_ in Milan to see you off.”
+
+“I hope not.”
+
+“Don’t say that. It frightens me. Maybe that’s where we’re going.”
+
+“I’m so groggy I don’t know,” I said.
+
+“Let me see your hands.”
+
+I put them out. They were both blistered raw.
+
+“There’s no hole in my side,” I said.
+
+“Don’t be sacrilegious.”
+
+I felt very tired and vague in the head. The exhilaration was all gone.
+The carriage was going along the street.
+
+“Poor hands,” Catherine said.
+
+“Don’t touch them,” I said. “By God I don’t know where we are. Where are
+we going, driver?” The driver stopped his horse.
+
+“To the Hotel Metropole. Don’t you want to go there?”
+
+“Yes,” I said. “It’s all right, Cat.”
+
+“It’s all right, darling. Don’t be upset. We’ll get a good sleep and you
+won’t feel groggy to-morrow.”
+
+“I get pretty groggy,” I said. “It’s like a comic opera to-day. Maybe
+I’m hungry.”
+
+“You’re just tired, darling. You’ll be fine.” The carriage pulled up
+before the hotel. Some one came out to take our bags.
+
+“I feel all right,” I said. We were down on the pavement going into the
+hotel.
+
+“I know you’ll be all right. You’re just tired. You’ve been up a long
+time.”
+
+“Anyhow we’re here.”
+
+“Yes, we’re really here.”
+
+We followed the boy with the bags into the hotel.
+
+
+
+
+                                 BOOK V
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+That fall the snow came very late. We lived in a brown wooden house in
+the pine trees on the side of the mountain and at night there was frost
+so that there was thin ice over the water in the two pitchers on the
+dresser in the morning. Mrs. Guttingen came into the room early in the
+morning to shut the windows and started a fire in the tall porcelain
+stove. The pine wood crackled and sparked and then the fire roared in
+the stove and the second time Mrs. Guttingen came into the room she
+brought big chunks of wood for the fire and a pitcher of hot water. When
+the room was warm she brought in breakfast. Sitting up in bed eating
+breakfast we could see the lake and the mountains across the lake on the
+French side. There was snow on the tops of the mountains and the lake
+was a gray steel-blue.
+
+Outside, in front of the chalet a road went up the mountain. The wheel
+ruts and ridges were iron hard with the frost, and the road climbed
+steadily through the forest and up and around the mountain to where
+there were meadows, and barns and cabins in the meadows at the edge of
+the woods looking across the valley. The valley was deep and there was a
+stream at the bottom that flowed down into the lake and when the wind
+blew across the valley you could hear the stream in the rocks.
+
+Sometimes we went off the road and on a path through the pine forest.
+The floor of the forest was soft to walk on; the frost did not harden it
+as it did the road. But we did not mind the hardness of the road because
+we had nails in the soles and heels of our boots and the heel nails bit
+on the frozen ruts and with nailed boots it was good walking on the road
+and invigorating. But it was lovely walking in the woods.
+
+In front of the house where we lived the mountain went down steeply to
+the little plain along the lake and we sat on the porch of the house in
+the sun and saw the winding of the road down the mountain-side and the
+terraced vineyards on the side of the lower mountain, the vines all dead
+now for the winter and the fields divided by stone walls, and below the
+vineyards the houses of the town on the narrow plain along the lake
+shore. There was an island with two trees on the lake and the trees
+looked like the double sails of a fishing-boat. The mountains were sharp
+and steep on the other side of the lake and down at the end of the lake
+was the plain of the Rhone Valley flat between the two ranges of
+mountains; and up the valley where the mountains cut it off was the Dent
+du Midi. It was a high snowy mountain and it dominated the valley but it
+was so far away that it did not make a shadow.
+
+When the sun was bright we ate lunch on the porch but the rest of the
+time we ate upstairs in a small room with plain wooden walls and a big
+stove in the corner. We bought books and magazines in the town and a
+copy of “Hoyle” and learned many two-handed card games. The small room
+with the stove was our living-room. There were two comfortable chairs
+and a table for books and magazines and we played cards on the
+dining-table when it was cleared away. Mr. and Mrs. Guttingen lived
+downstairs and we would hear them talking sometimes in the evening and
+they were very happy together too. He had been a headwaiter and she had
+worked as maid in the same hotel and they had saved their money to buy
+this place. They had a son who was studying to be a headwaiter. He was
+at a hotel in Zurich. Downstairs there was a parlor where they sold wine
+and beer, and sometimes in the evening we would hear carts stop outside
+on the road and men come up the steps to go in the parlor to drink wine.
+
+There was a box of wood in the hall outside the living-room and I kept
+up the fire from it. But we did not stay up very late. We went to bed in
+the dark in the big bedroom and when I was undressed I opened the
+windows and saw the night and the cold stars and the pine trees below
+the window and then got into bed as fast as I could. It was lovely in
+bed with the air so cold and clear and the night outside the window. We
+slept well and if I woke in the night I knew it was from only one cause
+and I would shift the feather bed over, very softly so that Catherine
+would not be wakened and then go back to sleep again, warm and with the
+new lightness of thin covers. The war seemed as far away as the football
+games of some one else’s college. But I knew from the papers that they
+were still fighting in the mountains because the snow would not come.
+
+
+
+Sometimes we walked down the mountain into Montreux. There was a path
+went down the mountain but it was steep and so usually we took the road
+and walked down on the wide hard road between fields and then below
+between the stone walls of the vineyards and on down between the houses
+of the villages along the way. There were three villages; Chernex,
+Fontanivent, and the other I forget. Then along the road we passed an
+old square-built stone château on a ledge on the side of the
+mountain-side with the terraced fields of vines, each vine tied to a
+stick to hold it up, the vines dry and brown and the earth ready for the
+snow and the lake down below flat and gray as steel. The road went down
+a long grade below the château and then turned to the right and went
+down very steeply and paved with cobbles, into Montreux.
+
+We did not know any one in Montreux. We walked along beside the lake and
+saw the swans and the many gulls and terns that flew up when you came
+close and screamed while they looked down at the water. Out on the lake
+there were flocks of grebes, small and dark, and leaving trails in the
+water when they swam. In the town we walked along the main street and
+looked in the windows of the shops. There were many big hotels that were
+closed but most of the shops were open and the people were very glad to
+see us. There was a fine coiffeur’s place where Catherine went to have
+her hair done. The woman who ran it was very cheerful and the only
+person we knew in Montreux. While Catherine was there I went up to a
+beer place and drank dark Munich beer and read the papers. I read the
+_Corriere Della Sera_ and the English and American papers from Paris.
+All the advertisements were blacked out, supposedly to prevent
+communication in that way with the enemy. The papers were bad reading.
+Everything was going very badly everywhere. I sat back in the corner
+with a heavy mug of dark beer and an opened glazed-paper package of
+pretzels and ate the pretzels for the salty flavor and the good way they
+made the beer taste and read about disaster. I thought Catherine would
+come by but she did not come, so I hung the papers back on the rack,
+paid for my beer and went up the street to look for her. The day was
+cold and dark and wintry and the stone of the houses looked cold.
+Catherine was still in the hair-dresser’s shop. The woman was waving her
+hair. I sat in the little booth and watched. It was exciting to watch
+and Catherine smiled and talked to me and my voice was a little thick
+from being excited. The tongs made a pleasant clicking sound and I could
+see Catherine in three mirrors and it was pleasant and warm in the
+booth. Then the woman put up Catherine’s hair, and Catherine looked in
+the mirror and changed it a little, taking out and putting in pins; then
+stood up. “I’m sorry to have taken such a long time.”
+
+“Monsieur was very interested. Were you not, monsieur?” the woman
+smiled.
+
+“Yes,” I said.
+
+We went out and up the street. It was cold and wintry and the wind was
+blowing. “Oh, darling, I love you so,” I said.
+
+“Don’t we have a fine time?” Catherine said. “Look. Let’s go some place
+and have beer instead of tea. It’s very good for young Catherine. It
+keeps her small.”
+
+“Young Catherine,” I said. “That loafer.”
+
+“She’s been very good,” Catherine said. “She makes very little trouble.
+The doctor says beer will be good for me and keep her small.”
+
+“If you keep her small enough and she’s a boy, maybe he will be a
+jockey.”
+
+“I suppose if we really have this child we ought to get married,”
+Catherine said. We were in the beer place at the corner table. It was
+getting dark outside. It was still early but the day was dark and the
+dusk was coming early.
+
+“Let’s get married now,” I said.
+
+“No,” Catherine said. “It’s too embarrassing now. I show too plainly. I
+won’t go before any one and be married in this state.”
+
+“I wish we’d gotten married.”
+
+“I suppose it would have been better. But when could we, darling?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“I know one thing. I’m not going to be married in this splendid matronly
+state.”
+
+“You’re not matronly.”
+
+“Oh yes, I am, darling. The hairdresser asked me if this was our first.
+I lied and said no, we had two boys and two girls.”
+
+“When will we be married?”
+
+“Any time after I’m thin again. We want to have a splendid wedding with
+every one thinking what a handsome young couple.”
+
+“And you’re not worried?”
+
+“Darling, why should I be worried? The only time I ever felt badly was
+when I felt like a whore in Milan and that only lasted seven minutes and
+besides it was the room furnishings. Don’t I make you a good wife?”
+
+“You’re a lovely wife.”
+
+“Then don’t be too technical, darling. I’ll marry you as soon as I’m
+thin again.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+“Do you think I ought to drink another beer? The doctor said I was
+rather narrow in the hips and it’s all for the best if we keep young
+Catherine small.”
+
+“What else did he say?” I was worried.
+
+“Nothing. I have a wonderful blood-pressure, darling. He admired my
+blood-pressure greatly.”
+
+“What did he say about you being too narrow in the hips?”
+
+“Nothing. Nothing at all. He said I shouldn’t ski.”
+
+“Quite right.”
+
+“He said it was too late to start if I’d never done it before. He said I
+could ski if I wouldn’t fall down.”
+
+“He’s just a big-hearted joker.”
+
+“Really he was very nice. We’ll have him when the baby comes.”
+
+“Did you ask him if you ought to get married?”
+
+“No. I told him we’d been married four years. You see, darling, if I
+marry you I’ll be an American and any time we’re married under American
+law the child is legitimate.”
+
+“Where did you find that out?”
+
+“In the New York _World Almanac_ in the library.”
+
+“You’re a grand girl.”
+
+“I’ll be very glad to be an American and we’ll go to America won’t we,
+darling? I want to see Niagara Falls.”
+
+“You’re a fine girl.”
+
+“There’s something else I want to see but I can’t remember it.”
+
+“The stockyards?”
+
+“No. I can’t remember it.”
+
+“The Woolworth building?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“The Grand Canyon?”
+
+“No. But I’d like to see that.”
+
+“What was it?”
+
+“The Golden Gate! That’s what I want to see. Where is the Golden Gate?”
+
+“San Francisco.”
+
+“Then let’s go there. I want to see San Francisco anyway.”
+
+“All right. We’ll go there.”
+
+“Now let’s go up the mountain. Should we? Can we get the M. O. B.?”
+
+“There’s a train a little after five.”
+
+“Let’s get that.”
+
+“All right. I’ll drink one more beer first.”
+
+When we went out to go up the street and climb the stairs to the station
+it was very cold. A cold wind was coming down the Rhone valley. There
+were lights in the shop windows and we climbed the steep stone stairway
+to the upper street, then up another stairs to the station. The electric
+train was there waiting, all the lights on. There was a dial that showed
+when it left. The clock hands pointed to ten minutes after five. I
+looked at the station clock. It was five minutes after. As we got on
+board I saw the motorman and conductor coming out of the station wine
+shop. We sat down and opened the window. The train was electrically
+heated and stuffy but fresh cold air came in through the window.
+
+“Are you tired, Cat?” I asked.
+
+“No. I feel splendid.”
+
+“It isn’t a long ride.”
+
+“I like the ride,” she said. “Don’t worry about me, darling. I feel
+fine.”
+
+
+
+Snow did not come until three days before Christmas. We woke one morning
+and it was snowing. We stayed in bed with the fire roaring in the stove
+and watched the snow fall. Mrs. Guttingen took away the breakfast trays
+and put more wood in the stove. It was a big snow storm. She said it had
+started about midnight. I went to the window and looked out but could
+not see across the road. It was blowing and snowing wildly. I went back
+to bed and we lay and talked.
+
+“I wish I could ski,” Catherine said. “It’s rotten not to be able to
+ski.”
+
+“We’ll get a bobsled and come down the road. That’s no worse for you
+than riding in a car.”
+
+“Won’t it be rough?”
+
+“We can see.”
+
+“I hope it won’t be too rough.”
+
+“After a while we’ll take a walk in the snow.”
+
+“Before lunch,” Catherine said, “so we’ll have a good appetite.”
+
+“I’m always hungry.”
+
+“So am I.”
+
+We went out in the snow but it was drifted so that we could not walk
+far. I went ahead and made a trail down to the station but when we
+reached there we had gone far enough. The snow was blowing so we could
+hardly see and we went into the little inn by the station and swept each
+other off with a broom and sat on a bench and had vermouths.
+
+“It is a big storm,” the barmaid said.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“The snow is very late this year.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Could I eat a chocolate bar?” Catherine asked. “Or is it too close to
+lunch? I’m always hungry.”
+
+“Go on and eat one,” I said.
+
+“I’ll take one with filberts,” Catherine said.
+
+“They are very good,” the girl said, “I like them the best.”
+
+“I’ll have another vermouth,” I said.
+
+When we came out to start back up the road our track was filled in by
+the snow. There were only faint indentations where the holes had been.
+The snow blew in our faces so we could hardly see. We brushed off and
+went in to have lunch. Mr. Guttingen served the lunch.
+
+“To-morrow there will be skiing,” he said. “Do you ski, Mr. Henry?”
+
+“No. But I want to learn.”
+
+“You will learn very easily. My boy will be here for Christmas and he
+will teach you.”
+
+“That’s fine. When does he come?”
+
+“To-morrow night.”
+
+When we were sitting by the stove in the little room after lunch looking
+out the window at the snow coming down Catherine said, “Wouldn’t you
+like to go on a trip somewhere by yourself, darling, and be with men and
+ski?”
+
+“No. Why should I?”
+
+“I should think sometimes you would want to see other people besides
+me.”
+
+“Do you want to see other people?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Neither do I.”
+
+“I know. But you’re different. I’m having a child and that makes me
+contented not to do anything. I know I’m awfully stupid now and I talk
+too much and I think you ought to get away so you won’t be tired of me.
+
+“Do you want me to go away?”
+
+“No. I want you to stay.”
+
+“That’s what I’m going to do.”
+
+“Come over here,” she said. “I want to feel the bump on your head. It’s
+a big bump.” She ran her finger over it. “Darling, would you like to
+grow a beard?”
+
+“Would you like me to?”
+
+“It might be fun. I’d like to see you with a beard.”
+
+“All right. I’ll grow one. I’ll start now this minute. It’s a good idea.
+It will give me something to do.”
+
+“Are you worried because you haven’t anything to do?”
+
+“No. I like it. I have a fine life. Don’t you?”
+
+“I have a lovely life. But I was afraid because I’m big now that maybe I
+was a bore to you.”
+
+“Oh, Cat. You don’t know how crazy I am about you.”
+
+“This way?”
+
+“Just the way you are. I have a fine time. Don’t we have a good life?”
+
+“I do, but I thought maybe you were restless.”
+
+“No. Sometimes I wonder about the front and about people I know but I
+don’t worry. I don’t think about anything much.”
+
+“Who do you wonder about?”
+
+“About Rinaldi and the priest and lots of people I know. But I don’t
+think about them much. I don’t want to think about the war. I’m through
+with it.”
+
+“What are you thinking about now?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“Yes you were. Tell me.”
+
+“I was wondering whether Rinaldi had the syphilis.”
+
+“Was that all?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Has he the syphilis?”
+
+“I don’t know.”
+
+“I’m glad you haven’t. Did you ever have anything like that?”
+
+“I had gonorrhea.”
+
+“I don’t want to hear about it. Was it very painful, darling?”
+
+“Very.”
+
+“I wish I’d had it.”
+
+“No you don’t.”
+
+“I do. I wish I’d had it to be like you. I wish I’d stayed with all your
+girls so I could make fun of them to you.”
+
+“That’s a pretty picture.”
+
+“It’s not a pretty picture you having gonorrhea.”
+
+“I know it. Look at it snow now.”
+
+“I’d rather look at you. Darling, why don’t you let your hair grow?”
+
+“How grow?”
+
+“Just grow a little longer.”
+
+“It’s long enough now.”
+
+“No, let it grow a little longer and I could cut mine and we’d be just
+alike only one of us blonde and one of us dark.”
+
+“I wouldn’t let you cut yours.”
+
+“It would be fun. I’m tired of it. It’s an awful nuisance in the bed at
+night.”
+
+“I like it.”
+
+“Wouldn’t you like it short?”
+
+“I might. I like it the way it is.”
+
+“It might be nice short. Then we’d both be alike. Oh, darling, I want
+you so much I want to be you too.”
+
+“You are. We’re the same one.”
+
+“I know it. At night we are.”
+
+“The nights are grand.”
+
+“I want us to be all mixed up. I don’t want you to go away. I just said
+that. You go if you want to. But hurry right back. Why, darling, I don’t
+live at all when I’m not with you.”
+
+“I won’t ever go away,” I said. “I’m no good when you’re not there. I
+haven’t any life at all any more.”
+
+“I want you to have a life. I want you to have a fine life. But we’ll
+have it together, won’t we?”
+
+“And now do you want me to stop growing my beard or let it go on?”
+
+“Go on. Grow it. It will be exciting. Maybe it will be done for New
+Year’s.”
+
+“Now do you want to play chess?”
+
+“I’d rather play with you.”
+
+“No. Let’s play chess.”
+
+“And afterward we’ll play?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+I got out the chess-board and arranged the pieces. It was still snowing
+hard outside.
+
+
+
+One time in the night I woke up and knew that Catherine was awake too.
+The moon was shining in the window and made shadows on the bed from the
+bars on the window-panes.
+
+“Are you awake, sweetheart?”
+
+“Yes. Can’t you sleep?”
+
+“I just woke up thinking about how I was nearly crazy when I first met
+you. Do you remember?”
+
+“You were just a little crazy.”
+
+“I’m never that way any more. I’m grand now. You say grand so sweetly.
+Say grand.”
+
+“Grand.”
+
+“Oh, you’re sweet. And I’m not crazy now. I’m just very, very, very
+happy.”
+
+“Go on to sleep,” I said.
+
+“All right. Let’s go to sleep at exactly the same moment.”
+
+“All right.”
+
+But we did not. I was awake for quite a long time thinking about things
+and watching Catherine sleeping, the moonlight on her face. Then I went
+to sleep, too.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+By the middle of January I had a beard and the winter had settled into
+bright cold days and hard cold nights. We could walk on the roads again.
+The snow was packed hard and smooth by the hay-sleds and wood-sledges
+and the logs that were hauled down the mountain. The snow lay over all
+the country, down almost to Montreux. The mountains on the other side of
+the lake were all white and the plain of the Rhone valley was covered.
+We took long walks on the other side of the mountain to the Bains de
+l’Alliaz. Catherine wore hobnailed boots and a cape and carried a stick
+with a sharp steel point. She did not look big with the cape and we
+would not walk too fast but stopped and sat on logs by the roadside to
+rest when she was tired.
+
+There was an inn in the trees at the Bains de l’Alliaz where the
+woodcutters stopped to drink, and we sat inside warmed by the stove and
+drank hot red wine with spices and lemon in it. They called it
+_glühwein_ and it was a good thing to warm you and to celebrate with.
+The inn was dark and smoky inside and afterward when you went out the
+cold air came sharply into your lungs and numbed the edge of your nose
+as you inhaled. We looked back at the inn with light coming from the
+windows and the woodcutters’ horses stamping and jerking their heads
+outside to keep warm. There was frost on the hairs of their muzzles and
+their breathing made plumes of frost in the air. Going up the road
+toward home the road was smooth and slippery for a while and the ice
+orange from the horses until the wood-hauling track turned off. Then the
+road was clean-packed snow and led through the woods, and twice coming
+home in the evening, we saw foxes.
+
+It was a fine country and every time that we went out it was fun.
+
+“You have a splendid beard now,” Catherine said. “It looks just like the
+woodcutters’. Did you see the man with the tiny gold ear-rings?”
+
+“He’s a chamois hunter,” I said. “They wear them because they say it
+makes them hear better.”
+
+“Really? I don’t believe it. I think they wear them to show they are
+chamois hunters. Are there chamois near here?”
+
+“Yes, beyond the Dent de Jaman.”
+
+“It was fun seeing the fox.”
+
+“When he sleeps he wraps that tail around him to keep warm.”
+
+“It must be a lovely feeling.”
+
+“I always wanted to have a tail like that. Wouldn’t it be fun if we had
+brushes like a fox?”
+
+“It might be very difficult dressing.”
+
+“We’d have clothes made, or live in a country where it wouldn’t make any
+difference.”
+
+“We live in a country where nothing makes any difference. Isn’t it grand
+how we never see any one? You don’t want to see people do you, darling?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Should we sit here just a minute? I’m a little bit tired.”
+
+We sat close together on the logs. Ahead the road went down through the
+forest.
+
+“She won’t come between us, will she? The little brat.”
+
+“No. We won’t let her.”
+
+“How are we for money?”
+
+“We have plenty. They honored the last sight draft.”
+
+“Won’t your family try and get hold of you now they know you’re in
+Switzerland?”
+
+“Probably. I’ll write them something.”
+
+“Haven’t you written them?”
+
+“No. Only the sight draft.”
+
+“Thank God I’m not your family.”
+
+“I’ll send them a cable.”
+
+“Don’t you care anything about them?”
+
+“I did, but we quarrelled so much it wore itself out.”
+
+“I think I’d like them. I’d probably like them very much.”
+
+“Let’s not talk about them or I’ll start to worry about them.” After a
+while I said, “Let’s go on if you’re rested.”
+
+“I’m rested.”
+
+We went on down the road. It was dark now and the snow squeaked under
+our boots. The night was dry and cold and very clear.
+
+“I love your beard,” Catherine said. “It’s a great success. It looks so
+stiff and fierce and it’s very soft and a great pleasure.”
+
+“Do you like it better than without?”
+
+“I think so. You know, darling, I’m not going to cut my hair now until
+after young Catherine’s born. I look too big and matronly now. But after
+she’s born and I’m thin again I’m going to cut it and then I’ll be a
+fine new and different girl for you. We’ll go together and get it cut,
+or I’ll go alone and come and surprise you.”
+
+I did not say anything.
+
+“You won’t say I can’t, will you?”
+
+“No. I think it would be exciting.”
+
+“Oh, you’re so sweet. And maybe I’d look lovely, darling, and be so thin
+and exciting to you and you’ll fall in love with me all over again.”
+
+“Hell,” I said, “I love you enough now. What do you want to do? Ruin
+me?”
+
+“Yes. I want to ruin you.”
+
+“Good,” I said, “that’s what I want too.”
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XL
+
+We had a fine life. We lived through the months of January and February
+and the winter was very fine and we were very happy. There had been
+short thaws when the wind blew warm and the snow softened and the air
+felt like Spring, but always the clear hard cold had come again and the
+winter had returned. In March came the first break in the winter. In the
+night it started raining. It rained on all morning and turned the snow
+to slush and made the mountain-side dismal. There were clouds over the
+lake and over the valley. It was raining high up the mountain. Catherine
+wore heavy overshoes and I wore Mr. Guttingen’s rubber-boots and we
+walked to the station under an umbrella, through the slush and the
+running water that was washing the ice of the roads bare, to stop at the
+pub before lunch for a vermouth. Outside we could hear the rain.
+
+“Do you think we ought to move into town?”
+
+“What do you think?” Catherine asked.
+
+“If the winter is over and the rain keeps up it won’t be fun up here.
+How long is it before young Catherine?”
+
+“About a month. Perhaps a little more.”
+
+“We might go down and stay in Montreux.”
+
+“Why don’t we go to Lausanne? That’s where the hospital is.”
+
+“All right. But I thought maybe that was too big a town.”
+
+“We can be as much alone in a bigger town and Lausanne might be nice.”
+
+“When should we go?”
+
+“I don’t care. Whenever you want, darling. I don’t want to leave here if
+you don’t want.”
+
+“Let’s see how the weather turns out.”
+
+It rained for three days. The snow was all gone now on the mountain-side
+below the station. The road was a torrent of muddy snow-water. It was
+too wet and slushy to go out. On the morning of the third day of rain we
+decided to go down into town.
+
+“That is all right, Mr. Henry,” Guttingen said. “You do not have to give
+me any notice. I did not think you would want to stay now the bad
+weather is come.”
+
+“We have to be near the hospital anyway on account of Madame,” I said.
+
+“I understand,” he said. “Will you come back some time and stay, with
+the little one?”
+
+“Yes, if you would have room.”
+
+“In the Spring when it is nice you could come and enjoy it. We could put
+the little one and the nurse in the big room that is closed now and you
+and Madame could have your same room looking out over the lake.”
+
+“I’ll write about coming,” I said. We packed and left on the train that
+went down after lunch. Mr. and Mrs. Guttingen came down to the station
+with us and he hauled our baggage down on a sled through the slush. They
+stood beside the station in the rain waving good-by.
+
+“They were very sweet,” Catherine said.
+
+“They were fine to us.”
+
+We took the train to Lausanne from Montreux. Looking out the window
+toward where we had lived you could not see the mountains for the
+clouds. The train stopped in Vevey, then went on, passing the lake on
+one side and on the other the wet brown fields and the bare woods and
+the wet houses. We came into Lausanne and went into a medium-sized hotel
+to stay. It was still raining as we drove through the streets and into
+the carriage entrance of the hotel. The concierge with brass keys on his
+lapels, the elevator, the carpets on the floors, and the white washbowls
+with shining fixtures, the brass bed and the big comfortable bedroom all
+seemed very great luxury after the Guttingens. The windows of the room
+looked out on a wet garden with a wall topped by an iron fence. Across
+the street, which sloped steeply, was another hotel with a similar wall
+and garden. I looked out at the rain falling in the fountain of the
+garden.
+
+Catherine turned on all the lights and commenced unpacking. I ordered a
+whiskey and soda and lay on the bed and read the papers I had bought at
+the station. It was March, 1918, and the German offensive had started in
+France. I drank the whiskey and soda and read while Catherine unpacked
+and moved around the room.
+
+“You know what I have to get, darling,” she said.
+
+“What?”
+
+“Baby clothes. There aren’t many people reach my time without baby
+things.”
+
+“You can buy them.”
+
+“I know. That’s what I’ll do to-morrow. I’ll find out what is
+necessary.”
+
+“You ought to know. You were a nurse.”
+
+“But so few of the soldiers had babies in the hospitals.”
+
+“I did.”
+
+She hit me with the pillow and spilled the whiskey and soda.
+
+“I’ll order you another,” she said. “I’m sorry I spilled it.”
+
+“There wasn’t much left. Come on over to the bed.”
+
+“No. I have to try and make this room look like something.”
+
+“Like what?”
+
+“Like our home.”
+
+“Hang out the Allied flags.”
+
+“Oh shut up.”
+
+“Say it again.”
+
+“Shut up.”
+
+“You say it so cautiously,” I said. “As though you didn’t want to offend
+any one.”
+
+“I don’t.”
+
+“Then come over to the bed.”
+
+“All right.” She came and sat on the bed. “I know I’m no fun for you,
+darling. I’m like a big flour-barrel.”
+
+“No you’re not. You’re beautiful and you’re sweet.”
+
+“I’m just something very ungainly that you’ve married.”
+
+“No you’re not. You’re more beautiful all the time.”
+
+“But I will be thin again, darling.”
+
+“You’re thin now.”
+
+“You’ve been drinking.”
+
+“Just whiskey and soda.”
+
+“There’s another one coming,” she said. “And then should we order dinner
+up here?”
+
+“That will be good.”
+
+“Then we won’t go out, will we? We’ll just stay in to-night.”
+
+“And play,” I said.
+
+“I’ll drink some wine,” Catherine said. “It won’t hurt me. Maybe we can
+get some of our old white capri.”
+
+“I know we can,” I said. “They’ll have Italian wines at a hotel this
+size.”
+
+The waiter knocked at the door. He brought the whiskey in a glass with
+ice and beside the glass on a tray a small bottle of soda.
+
+“Thank you,” I said. “Put it down there. Will you please have dinner for
+two brought up here and two bottles of dry white capri in ice.”
+
+“Do you wish to commence your dinner with soup?”
+
+“Do you want soup, Cat?”
+
+“Please.”
+
+“Bring soup for one.”
+
+“Thank you, sir.” He went out and shut the door. I went back to the
+papers and the war in the papers and poured the soda slowly over the ice
+into the whiskey. I would have to tell them not to put ice in the
+whiskey. Let them bring the ice separately. That way you could tell how
+much whiskey there was and it would not suddenly be too thin from the
+soda. I would get a bottle of whiskey and have them bring ice and soda.
+That was the sensible way. Good whiskey was very pleasant. It was one of
+the pleasant parts of life.
+
+“What are you thinking, darling?”
+
+“About whiskey.”
+
+“What about whiskey?”
+
+“About how nice it is.”
+
+Catherine made a face. “All right,” she said.
+
+
+
+We stayed at that hotel three weeks. It was not bad; the dining-room was
+usually empty and very often we ate in our room at night. We walked in
+the town and took the cogwheel railway down to Ouchy and walked beside
+the lake. The weather became quite warm and it was like Spring. We
+wished we were back in the mountains but the Spring weather lasted only
+a few days and then the cold rawness of the breaking-up of winter came
+again.
+
+Catherine bought the things she needed for the baby, up in the town. I
+went to a gymnasium in the arcade to box for exercise. I usually went up
+there in the morning while Catherine stayed late in bed. On the days of
+false Spring it was very nice, after boxing and taking a shower, to walk
+along the streets smelling the Spring in the air and stop at a café to
+sit and watch the people and read the paper and drink a vermouth; then
+go down to the hotel and have lunch with Catherine. The professor at the
+boxing gymnasium wore mustaches and was very precise and jerky and went
+all to pieces if you started after him. But it was pleasant in the gym.
+There was good air and light and I worked quite hard, skipping rope,
+shadow-boxing, doing abdominal exercises lying on the floor in a patch
+of sunlight that came through the open window, and occasionally scaring
+the professor when we boxed. I could not shadow-box in front of the
+narrow long mirror at first because it looked so strange to see a man
+with a beard boxing. But finally I just thought it was funny. I wanted
+to take off the beard as soon as I started boxing but Catherine did not
+want me to.
+
+Sometimes Catherine and I went for rides out in the country in a
+carriage. It was nice to ride when the days were pleasant and we found
+two good places where we could ride out to eat. Catherine could not walk
+very far now and I loved to ride out along the country roads with her.
+When there was a good day we had a splendid time and we never had a bad
+time. We knew the baby was very close now and it gave us both a feeling
+as though something were hurrying us and we could not lose any time
+together.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XLI
+
+One morning I awoke about three o’clock hearing Catherine stirring in
+the bed.
+
+“Are you all right, Cat?”
+
+“I’ve been having some pains, darling.”
+
+“Regularly?”
+
+“No, not very.”
+
+“If you have them at all regularly we’ll go to the hospital.”
+
+I was very sleepy and went back to sleep. A little while later I woke
+again.
+
+“Maybe you’d better call up the doctor,” Catherine said. “I think maybe
+this is it.”
+
+I went to the phone and called the doctor. “How often are the pains
+coming?” he asked.
+
+“How often are they coming, Cat?”
+
+“I should think every quarter of an hour.”
+
+“You should go to the hospital then,” the doctor said. “I will dress and
+go there right away myself.”
+
+I hung up and called the garage near the station to send up a taxi. No
+one answered the phone for a long time. Then I finally got a man who
+promised to send up a taxi at once. Catherine was dressing. Her bag was
+all packed with the things she would need at the hospital and the baby
+things. Outside in the hall I rang for the elevator. There was no
+answer. I went downstairs. There was no one downstairs except the
+night-watchman. I brought the elevator up myself, put Catherine’s bag in
+it, she stepped in and we went down. The night-watchman opened the door
+for us and we sat outside on the stone slabs beside the stairs down to
+the driveway and waited for the taxi. The night was clear and the stars
+were out. Catherine was very excited.
+
+“I’m so glad it’s started,” she said. “Now in a little while it will be
+all over.”
+
+“You’re a good brave girl.”
+
+“I’m not afraid. I wish the taxi would come, though.”
+
+We heard it coming up the street and saw its headlights. It turned into
+the driveway and I helped Catherine in and the driver put the bag up in
+front.
+
+“Drive to the hospital,” I said.
+
+We went out of the driveway and started up the hill.
+
+At the hospital we went in and I carried the bag. There was a woman at
+the desk who wrote down Catherine’s name, age, address, relatives and
+religion, in a book. She said she had no religion and the woman drew a
+line in the space after that word. She gave her name as Catherine Henry.
+
+“I will take you up to your room,” she said. We went up in an elevator.
+The woman stopped it and we stepped out and followed her down a hall.
+Catherine held tight to my arm.
+
+“This is the room,” the woman said. “Will you please undress and get
+into bed? Here is a nightgown for you to wear.”
+
+“I have a nightgown,” Catherine said.
+
+“It is better for you to wear this nightgown,” the woman said.
+
+I went outside and sat on a chair in the hallway.
+
+“You can come in now,” the woman said from the doorway. Catherine was
+lying in the narrow bed wearing a plain, square-cut nightgown that
+looked as though it were made of rough sheeting. She smiled at me.
+
+“I’m having fine pains now,” she said. The woman was holding her wrist
+and timing the pains with a watch.
+
+“That was a big one,” Catherine said. I saw it on her face.
+
+“Where’s the doctor?” I asked the woman.
+
+“He’s lying down sleeping. He will be here when he is needed.”
+
+“I must do something for Madame, now,” the nurse said. “Would you please
+step out again?”
+
+I went out into the hall. It was a bare hall with two windows and closed
+doors all down the corridor. It smelled of hospital. I sat on the chair
+and looked at the floor and prayed for Catherine.
+
+“You can come in,” the nurse said. I went in.
+
+“Hello, darling,” Catherine said.
+
+“How is it?”
+
+“They are coming quite often now.” Her face drew up. Then she smiled.
+
+“That was a real one. Do you want to put your hand on my back again,
+nurse?”
+
+“If it helps you,” the nurse said.
+
+“You go away, darling,” Catherine said. “Go out and get something to
+eat. I may do this for a long time the nurse says.”
+
+“The first labor is usually protracted,” the nurse said.
+
+“Please go out and get something to eat,” Catherine said. “I’m fine,
+really.”
+
+“I’ll stay awhile,” I said.
+
+The pains came quite regularly, then slackened off. Catherine was very
+excited. When the pains were bad she called them good ones. When they
+started to fall off she was disappointed and ashamed.
+
+“You go out, darling,” she said. “I think you are just making me
+self-conscious.” Her face tied up. “There. That was better. I so want to
+be a good wife and have this child without any foolishness. Please go
+and get some breakfast, darling, and then come back. I won’t miss you.
+Nurse is splendid to me.”
+
+“You have plenty of time for breakfast,” the nurse said.
+
+“I’ll go then. Good-by, sweet.”
+
+“Good-by,” Catherine said, “and have a fine breakfast for me too.”
+
+“Where can I get breakfast?” I asked the nurse.
+
+“There’s a café down the street at the square,” she said. “It should be
+open now.”
+
+Outside it was getting light. I walked down the empty street to the
+café. There was a light in the window. I went in and stood at the zinc
+bar and an old man served me a glass of white wine and a brioche. The
+brioche was yesterday’s. I dipped it in the wine and then drank a glass
+of coffee.
+
+“What do you do at this hour?” the old man asked.
+
+“My wife is in labor at the hospital.”
+
+“So. I wish you good luck.”
+
+“Give me another glass of wine.”
+
+He poured it from the bottle slopping it over a little so some ran down
+on the zinc. I drank this glass, paid and went out. Outside along the
+street were the refuse cans from the houses waiting for the collector. A
+dog was nosing at one of the cans.
+
+“What do you want?” I asked and looked in the can to see if there was
+anything I could pull out for him; there was nothing on top but
+coffee-grounds, dust and some dead flowers.
+
+“There isn’t anything, dog,” I said. The dog crossed the street. I went
+up the stairs in the hospital to the floor Catherine was on and down the
+hall to her room. I knocked on the door. There was no answer. I opened
+the door; the room was empty, except for Catherine’s bag on a chair and
+her dressing-gown hanging on a hook on the wall. I went out and down the
+hall, looking for somebody. I found a nurse.
+
+“Where is Madame Henry?”
+
+“A lady has just gone to the delivery room.”
+
+“Where is it?”
+
+“I will show you.”
+
+She took me down to the end of the hall. The door of the room was partly
+open. I could see Catherine lying on a table, covered by a sheet. The
+nurse was on one side and the doctor stood on the other side of the
+table beside some cylinders. The doctor held a rubber mask attached to a
+tube in one hand.
+
+“I will give you a gown and you can go in,” the nurse said. “Come in
+here, please.”
+
+She put a white gown on me and pinned it at the neck in back with a
+safety pin.
+
+“Now you can go in,” she said. I went into the room.
+
+“Hello, darling,” Catherine said in a strained voice. “I’m not doing
+much.”
+
+“You are Mr. Henry?” the doctor asked.
+
+“Yes. How is everything going, doctor?”
+
+“Things are going very well,” the doctor said. “We came in here where it
+is easy to give gas for the pains.”
+
+“I want it now,” Catherine said. The doctor placed the rubber mask over
+her face and turned a dial and I watched Catherine breathing deeply and
+rapidly. Then she pushed the mask away. The doctor shut off the petcock.
+
+“That wasn’t a very big one. I had a very big one a while ago. The
+doctor made me go clear out, didn’t you, doctor?” Her voice was strange.
+It rose on the word doctor.
+
+The doctor smiled.
+
+“I want it again,” Catherine said. She held the rubber tight to her face
+and breathed fast. I heard her moaning a little. Then she pulled the
+mask away and smiled.
+
+“That was a big one,” she said. “That was a very big one. Don’t you
+worry, darling. You go away. Go have another breakfast.”
+
+“I’ll stay,” I said.
+
+
+
+We had gone to the hospital about three o’clock in the morning. At noon
+Catherine was still in the delivery room. The pains had slackened again.
+She looked very tired and worn now but she was still cheerful.
+
+“I’m not any good, darling,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I thought I would
+do it very easily. Now—there’s one—” she reached out her hand for the
+mask and held it over her face. The doctor moved the dial and watched
+her. In a little while it was over.
+
+“It wasn’t much,” Catherine said. She smiled. “I’m a fool about the gas.
+It’s wonderful.”
+
+“We’ll get some for the home,” I said.
+
+“_There one comes_,” Catherine said quickly. The doctor turned the dial
+and looked at his watch.
+
+“What is the interval now?” I asked.
+
+“About a minute.”
+
+“Don’t you want lunch?”
+
+“I will have something pretty soon,” he said.
+
+“You must have something to eat, doctor,” Catherine said. “I’m so sorry
+I go on so long. Couldn’t my husband give me the gas?”
+
+“If you wish,” the doctor said. “You turn it to the numeral two.”
+
+“I see,” I said. There was a marker on a dial that turned with a handle.
+
+“_I want it now_,” Catherine said. She held the mask tight to her face.
+I turned the dial to number two and when Catherine put down the mask I
+turned it off. It was very good of the doctor to let me do something.
+
+“Did you do it, darling?” Catherine asked. She stroked my wrist.
+
+“Sure.”
+
+“You’re so lovely.” She was a little drunk from the gas.
+
+“I will eat from a tray in the next room,” the doctor said. “You can
+call me any moment.” While the time passed I watched him eat, then,
+after a while, I saw that he was lying down and smoking a cigarette.
+Catherine was getting very tired.
+
+“Do you think I’ll ever have this baby?” she asked.
+
+“Yes, of course you will.”
+
+“I try as hard as I can. I push down but it goes away. _There it comes.
+Give it to me._”
+
+At two o’clock I went out and had lunch. There were a few men in the
+café sitting with coffee and glasses of kirsch or marc on the tables. I
+sat down at a table. “Can I eat?” I asked the waiter.
+
+“It is past time for lunch.”
+
+“Isn’t there anything for all hours?”
+
+“You can have _choucroute_.”
+
+“Give me _choucroute_ and beer.”
+
+“A demi or a bock?”
+
+“A light demi.”
+
+The waiter brought a dish of sauerkraut with a slice of ham over the top
+and a sausage buried in the hot wine-soaked cabbage. I ate it and drank
+the beer. I was very hungry. I watched the people at the tables in the
+café. At one table they were playing cards. Two men at the table next me
+were talking and smoking. The café was full of smoke. The zinc bar,
+where I had breakfasted, had three people behind it now; the old man, a
+plump woman in a black dress who sat behind a counter and kept track of
+everything served to the tables, and a boy in an apron. I wondered how
+many children the woman had and what it had been like.
+
+When I was through with the _choucroute_ I went back to the hospital.
+The street was all clean now. There were no refuse cans out. The day was
+cloudy but the sun was trying to come through. I rode upstairs in the
+elevator, stepped out and went down the hall to Catherine’s room, where
+I had left my white gown. I put it on and pinned it in back at the neck.
+I looked in the glass and saw myself looking like a fake doctor with a
+beard. I went down the hall to the delivery room. The door was closed
+and I knocked. No one answered so I turned the handle and went in. The
+doctor sat by Catherine. The nurse was doing something at the other end
+of the room.
+
+“Here is your husband,” the doctor said.
+
+“Oh, darling, I have the most wonderful doctor,” Catherine said in a
+very strange voice. “He’s been telling me the most wonderful story and
+when the pain came too badly he put me all the way out. He’s wonderful.
+You’re wonderful, doctor.”
+
+“You’re drunk,” I said.
+
+“I know it,” Catherine said. “But you shouldn’t say it.” Then “_Give it
+to me. Give it to me._” She clutched hold of the mask and breathed short
+and deep, pantingly, making the respirator click. Then she gave a long
+sigh and the doctor reached with his left hand and lifted away the mask.
+
+“That was a very big one,” Catherine said. Her voice was very strange.
+“I’m not going to die now, darling. I’m past where I was going to die.
+Aren’t you glad?”
+
+“Don’t you get in that place again.”
+
+“I won’t. I’m not afraid of it though. I won’t die, darling.”
+
+“You will not do any such foolishness,” the doctor said. “You would not
+die and leave your husband.”
+
+“Oh, no. I won’t die. I wouldn’t die. It’s silly to die. There it comes.
+_Give it to me._”
+
+After a while the doctor said, “You will go out, Mr. Henry, for a few
+moments and I will make an examination.”
+
+“He wants to see how I am doing,” Catherine said. “You can come back
+afterward, darling, can’t he, doctor?”
+
+“Yes,” said the doctor. “I will send word when he can come back.”
+
+I went out the door and down the hall to the room where Catherine was to
+be after the baby came. I sat in a chair there and looked at the room. I
+had the paper in my coat that I had bought when I went out for lunch and
+I read it. It was beginning to be dark outside and I turned the light on
+to read. After a while I stopped reading and turned off the light and
+watched it get dark outside. I wondered why the doctor did not send for
+me. Maybe it was better I was away. He probably wanted me away for a
+while. I looked at my watch. If he did not send for me in ten minutes I
+would go down anyway.
+
+Poor, poor dear Cat. And this was the price you paid for sleeping
+together. This was the end of the trap. This was what people got for
+loving each other. Thank God for gas, anyway. What must it have been
+like before there were anæsthetics? Once it started, they were in the
+mill-race. Catherine had a good time in the time of pregnancy. It wasn’t
+bad. She was hardly ever sick. She was not awfully uncomfortable until
+toward the last. So now they got her in the end. You never got away with
+anything. Get away hell! It would have been the same if we had been
+married fifty times. And what if she should die? She won’t die. People
+don’t die in childbirth nowadays. That was what all husbands thought.
+Yes, but what if she should die? She won’t die. She’s just having a bad
+time. The initial labor is usually protracted. She’s only having a bad
+time. Afterward we’d say what a bad time and Catherine would say it
+wasn’t really so bad. But what if she should die? She can’t die. Yes,
+but what if she should die? She can’t, I tell you. Don’t be a fool. It’s
+just a bad time. It’s just nature giving her hell. It’s only the first
+labor, which is almost always protracted. Yes, but what if she should
+die? She can’t die. Why would she die? What reason is there for her to
+die? There’s just a child that has to be born, the by-product of good
+nights in Milan. It makes trouble and is born and then you look after it
+and get fond of it maybe. But what if she should die? She won’t die. But
+what if she should die? She won’t. She’s all right. But what if she
+should die? She can’t die. But what if she should die? Hey, what about
+that? What if she should die?
+
+The doctor came into the room.
+
+“How does it go, doctor?”
+
+“It doesn’t go,” he said.
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+“Just that. I made an examination—” He detailed the result of the
+examination. “Since then I’ve waited to see. But it doesn’t go.”
+
+“What do you advise?”
+
+“There are two things. Either a high forceps delivery which can tear and
+be quite dangerous besides being possibly bad for the child, and a
+Cæsarean.”
+
+“What is the danger of a Cæsarean?” What if she should die!
+
+“It should be no greater than the danger of an ordinary delivery.”
+
+“Would you do it yourself?”
+
+“Yes. I would need possibly an hour to get things ready and to get the
+people I would need. Perhaps a little less.”
+
+“What do you think?”
+
+“I would advise a Cæsarean operation. If it were my wife I would do a
+Cæsarean.”
+
+“What are the after effects?”
+
+“There are none. There is only the scar.”
+
+“What about infection?”
+
+“The danger is not so great as in a high forceps delivery.”
+
+“What if you just went on and did nothing?”
+
+“You would have to do something eventually. Mrs. Henry is already losing
+much of her strength. The sooner we operate now the safer.”
+
+“Operate as soon as you can,” I said.
+
+“I will go and give the instructions.”
+
+I went into the delivery room. The nurse was with Catherine who lay on
+the table, big under the sheet, looking very pale and tired.
+
+“Did you tell him he could do it?” she asked.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Isn’t that grand. Now it will be all over in an hour. I’m almost done,
+darling. I’m going all to pieces. _Please give me that._ It doesn’t
+work. _Oh, it doesn’t work!_”
+
+“Breathe deeply.”
+
+“I am. Oh, it doesn’t work any more. It doesn’t work!”
+
+“Get another cylinder,” I said to the nurse.
+
+“That is a new cylinder.”
+
+“I’m just a fool, darling,” Catherine said. “But it doesn’t work any
+more.” She began to cry. “Oh, I wanted so to have this baby and not make
+trouble, and now I’m all done and all gone to pieces and it doesn’t
+work. Oh, darling, it doesn’t work at all. I don’t care if I die if it
+will only stop. Oh, please, darling, please make it stop. _There it
+comes. Oh Oh Oh!_” She breathed sobbingly in the mask. “It doesn’t work.
+It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. Don’t mind me, darling. Please don’t
+cry. Don’t mind me. I’m just gone all to pieces. You poor sweet. I love
+you so and I’ll be good again. I’ll be good this time. _Can’t they give
+me something?_ If they could only give me something.”
+
+“I’ll make it work. I’ll turn it all the way.”
+
+“Give it to me now.”
+
+I turned the dial all the way and as she breathed hard and deep her hand
+relaxed on the mask. I shut off the gas and lifted the mask. She came
+back from a long way away.
+
+“That was lovely, darling. Oh, you’re so good to me.
+
+“You be brave, because I can’t do that all the time. It might kill you.”
+
+“I’m not brave any more, darling. I’m all broken. They’ve broken me. I
+know it now.”
+
+“Everybody is that way.”
+
+“But it’s awful. They just keep it up till they break you.”
+
+“In an hour it will be over.”
+
+“Isn’t that lovely? Darling, I won’t die, will I?”
+
+“No. I promise you won’t.”
+
+“Because I don’t want to die and leave you, but I get so tired of it and
+I feel I’m going to die.”
+
+“Nonsense. Everybody feels that.”
+
+“Sometimes I know I’m going to die.”
+
+“You won’t. You can’t.”
+
+“But what if I should?”
+
+“I won’t let you.”
+
+“Give it to me quick. _Give it to me!_”
+
+Then afterward, “I won’t die. I won’t let myself die.”
+
+“Of course you won’t.”
+
+“You’ll stay with me?”
+
+“Not to watch it.”
+
+“No, just to be there.”
+
+“Sure. I’ll be there all the time.”
+
+“You’re so good to me. There, give it to me. Give me some more. _It’s
+not working!_”
+
+I turned the dial to three and then four. I wished the doctor would come
+back. I was afraid of the numbers above two.
+
+
+
+Finally a new doctor came in with two nurses and they lifted Catherine
+onto a wheeled stretcher and we started down the hall. The stretcher
+went rapidly down the hall and into the elevator where every one had to
+crowd against the wall to make room; then up, then an open door and out
+of the elevator and down the hall on rubber wheels to the operating
+room. I did not recognize the doctor with his cap and mask on. There was
+another doctor and more nurses.
+
+“_They’ve got to give me something_,” Catherine said. “_They’ve got to
+give me something._ Oh please, doctor, give me enough to do some good!”
+
+One of the doctors put a mask over her face and I looked through the
+door and saw the bright small amphitheatre of the operating room.
+
+“You can go in the other door and sit up there,” a nurse said to me.
+There were benches behind a rail that looked down on the white table and
+the lights. I looked at Catherine. The mask was over her face and she
+was quiet now. They wheeled the stretcher forward. I turned away and
+walked down the hall. Two nurses were hurrying toward the entrance to
+the gallery.
+
+“It’s a Cæsarean,” one said. “They’re going to do a Cæsarean.”
+
+The other one laughed, “We’re just in time. Aren’t we lucky?” They went
+in the door that led to the gallery.
+
+Another nurse came along. She was hurrying too.
+
+“You go right in there. Go right in,” she said.
+
+“I’m staying outside.”
+
+She hurried in. I walked up and down the hall. I was afraid to go in. I
+looked out the window. It was dark but in the light from the window I
+could see it was raining. I went into a room at the far end of the hall
+and looked at the labels on bottles in a glass case. Then I came out and
+stood in the empty hall and watched the door of the operating room.
+
+A doctor came out followed by a nurse. He held something in his two
+hands that looked like a freshly skinned rabbit and hurried across the
+corridor with it and in through another door. I went down to the door he
+had gone into and found them in the room doing things to a new-born
+child. The doctor held him up for me to see. He held him by the heels
+and slapped him.
+
+“Is he all right?”
+
+“He’s magnificent. He’ll weigh five kilos.”
+
+I had no feeling for him. He did not seem to have anything to do with
+me. I felt no feeling of fatherhood.
+
+“Aren’t you proud of your son?” the nurse asked. They were washing him
+and wrapping him in something. I saw the little dark face and dark hand,
+but I did not see him move or hear him cry. The doctor was doing
+something to him again. He looked upset.
+
+“No,” I said. “He nearly killed his mother.”
+
+“It isn’t the little darling’s fault. Didn’t you want a boy?”
+
+“No,” I said. The doctor was busy with him. He held him up by the feet
+and slapped him. I did not wait to see it. I went out in the hall. I
+could go in now and see. I went in the door and a little way down the
+gallery. The nurses who were sitting at the rail motioned for me to come
+down where they were. I shook my head. I could see enough where I was.
+
+I thought Catherine was dead. She looked dead. Her face was gray, the
+part of it that I could see. Down below, under the light, the doctor was
+sewing up the great long, forcep-spread, thick-edged, wound. Another
+doctor in a mask gave the anæsthetic. Two nurses in masks handed things.
+It looked like a drawing of the Inquisition. I knew as I watched I could
+have watched it all, but I was glad I hadn’t. I do not think I could
+have watched them cut, but I watched the wound closed into a high welted
+ridge with quick skilful-looking stitches like a cobbler’s, and was
+glad. When the wound was closed I went out into the hall and walked up
+and down again. After a while the doctor came out.
+
+“How is she?”
+
+“She is all right. Did you watch?”
+
+He looked tired.
+
+“I saw you sew up. The incision looked very long.”
+
+“You thought so?”
+
+“Yes. Will that scar flatten out?”
+
+“Oh, yes.”
+
+After a while they brought out the wheeled stretcher and took it very
+rapidly down the hallway to the elevator. I went along beside it.
+Catherine was moaning. Downstairs they put her in the bed in her room. I
+sat in a chair at the foot of the bed. There was a nurse in the room. I
+got up and stood by the bed. It was dark in the room. Catherine put out
+her hand, “Hello, darling,” she said. Her voice was very weak and tired.
+
+“Hello, you sweet.”
+
+“What sort of baby was it?”
+
+“Sh—don’t talk,” the nurse said.
+
+“A boy. He’s long and wide and dark.”
+
+“Is he all right?”
+
+“Yes,” I said. “He’s fine.”
+
+I saw the nurse look at me strangely.
+
+“I’m awfully tired,” Catherine said. “And I hurt like hell. Are you all
+right, darling?”
+
+“I’m fine. Don’t talk.”
+
+“You were lovely to me. Oh, darling, I hurt dreadfully. What does he
+look like?”
+
+“He looks like a skinned rabbit with a puckered-up old-man’s face.”
+
+“You must go out,” the nurse said. “Madame Henry must not talk.”
+
+“I’ll be outside,” I said.
+
+“Go and get something to eat.”
+
+“No. I’ll be outside.” I kissed Catherine. She was very gray and weak
+and tired.
+
+“May I speak to you?” I said to the nurse. She came out in the hall with
+me. I walked a little way down the hall.
+
+“What’s the matter with the baby?” I asked.
+
+“Didn’t you know?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“He wasn’t alive.”
+
+“He was dead?”
+
+“They couldn’t start him breathing. The cord was caught around his neck
+or something.”
+
+“So he’s dead.”
+
+“Yes. It’s such a shame. He was such a fine big boy. I thought you
+knew.”
+
+“No,” I said. “You better go back in with Madame.”
+
+I sat down on the chair in front of a table where there were nurses’
+reports hung on clips at the side and looked out of the window. I could
+see nothing but the dark and the rain falling across the light from the
+window. So that was it. The baby was dead. That was why the doctor
+looked so tired. But why had they acted the way they did in the room
+with him? They supposed he would come around and start breathing
+probably. I had no religion but I knew he ought to have been baptized.
+But what if he never breathed at all. He hadn’t. He had never been
+alive. Except in Catherine. I’d felt him kick there often enough. But I
+hadn’t for a week. Maybe he was choked all the time. Poor little kid. I
+wished the hell I’d been choked like that. No I didn’t. Still there
+would not be all this dying to go through. Now Catherine would die. That
+was what you did. You died. You did not know what it was about. You
+never had time to learn. They threw you in and told you the rules and
+the first time they caught you off base they killed you. Or they killed
+you gratuitously like Aymo. Or gave you the syphilis like Rinaldo. But
+they killed you in the end. You could count on that. Stay around and
+they would kill you.
+
+Once in camp I put a log on top of the fire and it was full of ants. As
+it commenced to burn, the ants swarmed out and went first toward the
+centre where the fire was; then turned back and ran toward the end. When
+there were enough on the end they fell off into the fire. Some got out,
+their bodies burnt and flattened, and went off not knowing where they
+were going. But most of them went toward the fire and then back toward
+the end and swarmed on the cool end and finally fell off into the fire.
+I remember thinking at the time that it was the end of the world and a
+splendid chance to be a messiah and lift the log off the fire and throw
+it out where the ants could get off onto the ground. But I did not do
+anything but throw a tin cup of water on the log, so that I would have
+the cup empty to put whiskey in before I added water to it. I think the
+cup of water on the burning log only steamed the ants.
+
+So now I sat out in the hall and waited to hear how Catherine was. The
+nurse did not come out, so after a while I went to the door and opened
+it very softly and looked in. I could not see at first because there was
+a bright light in the hall and it was dark in the room. Then I saw the
+nurse sitting by the bed and Catherine’s head on a pillow, and she all
+flat under the sheet. The nurse put her finger to her lips, then stood
+up and came to the door.
+
+“How is she?” I asked.
+
+“She’s all right,” the nurse said. “You should go and have your supper
+and then come back if you wish.”
+
+I went down the hall and then down the stairs and out the door of the
+hospital and down the dark street in the rain to the café. It was
+brightly lighted inside and there were many people at the tables. I did
+not see a place to sit, and a waiter came up to me and took my wet coat
+and hat and showed me a place at a table across from an elderly man who
+was drinking beer and reading the evening paper. I sat down and asked
+the waiter what the _plat du jour_ was.
+
+“Veal stew—but it is finished.”
+
+“What can I have to eat?”
+
+“Ham and eggs, eggs with cheese, or _choucroute_.”
+
+“I had _choucroute_ this noon,” I said.
+
+“That’s true,” he said. “That’s true. You ate _choucroute_ this noon.”
+He was a middle-aged man with a bald top to his head and his hair
+slicked over it. He had a kind face.
+
+“What do you want? Ham and eggs or eggs with cheese?”
+
+“Ham and eggs,” I said, “and beer.”
+
+“A demi-blonde?”
+
+“Yes,” I said.
+
+“I remembered,” he said. “You took a demi-blonde this noon.”
+
+I ate the ham and eggs and drank the beer. The ham and eggs were in a
+round dish—the ham underneath and the eggs on top. It was very hot and
+at the first mouthful I had to take a drink of beer to cool my mouth. I
+was hungry and I asked the waiter for another order. I drank several
+glasses of beer. I was not thinking at all but read the paper of the man
+opposite me. It was about the break through on the British front. When
+he realized I was reading the back of his paper he folded it over. I
+thought of asking the waiter for a paper, but I could not concentrate.
+It was hot in the café and the air was bad. Many of the people at the
+tables knew one another. There were several card games going on. The
+waiters were busy bringing drinks from the bar to the tables. Two men
+came in and could find no place to sit. They stood opposite the table
+where I was. I ordered another beer. I was not ready to leave yet. It
+was too soon to go back to the hospital. I tried not to think and to be
+perfectly calm. The men stood around but no one was leaving, so they
+went out. I drank another beer. There was quite a pile of saucers now on
+the table in front of me. The man opposite me had taken off his
+spectacles, put them away in a case, folded his paper and put it in his
+pocket and now sat holding his liqueur glass and looking out at the
+room. Suddenly I knew I had to get back. I called the waiter, paid the
+reckoning, got into my coat, put on my hat and started out the door. I
+walked through the rain up to the hospital.
+
+Upstairs I met the nurse coming down the hall.
+
+“I just called you at the hotel,” she said. Something dropped inside me.
+
+“What is wrong?”
+
+“Mrs. Henry has had a hemorrhage.”
+
+“Can I go in?”
+
+“No, not yet. The doctor is with her.”
+
+“Is it dangerous?”
+
+“It is very dangerous.” The nurse went into the room and shut the door.
+I sat outside in the hall. Everything was gone inside of me. I did not
+think. I could not think. I knew she was going to die and I prayed that
+she would not. Don’t let her die. Oh, God, please don’t let her die.
+I’ll do anything for you if you won’t let her die. Please, please,
+please, dear God, don’t let her die. Dear God, don’t let her die.
+Please, please, please don’t let her die. God please make her not die.
+I’ll do anything you say if you don’t let her die. You took the baby but
+don’t let her die. That was all right but don’t let her die. Please,
+please, dear God, don’t let her die.
+
+The nurse opened the door and motioned with her finger for me to come. I
+followed her into the room. Catherine did not look up when I came in. I
+went over to the side of the bed. The doctor was standing by the bed on
+the opposite side. Catherine looked at me and smiled. I bent down over
+the bed and started to cry.
+
+“Poor darling,” Catherine said very softly. She looked gray.
+
+“You’re all right, Cat,” I said. “You’re going to be all right.”
+
+“I’m going to die,” she said; then waited and said, “I hate it.”
+
+I took her hand.
+
+“Don’t touch me,” she said. I let go of her hand. She smiled. “Poor
+darling. You touch me all you want.”
+
+“You’ll be all right, Cat. I know you’ll be all right.”
+
+“I meant to write you a letter to have if anything happened, but I
+didn’t do it.”
+
+“Do you want me to get a priest or any one to come and see you?”
+
+“Just you,” she said. Then a little later, “I’m not afraid. I just hate
+it.”
+
+“You must not talk so much,” the doctor said.
+
+“All right,” Catherine said.
+
+“Do you want me to do anything, Cat? Can I get you anything?”
+
+Catherine smiled, “No.” Then a little later, “You won’t do our things
+with another girl, or say the same things, will you?”
+
+“Never.”
+
+“I want you to have girls, though.”
+
+“I don’t want them.”
+
+“You are talking too much,” the doctor said. “Mr. Henry must go out. He
+can come back again later. You are not going to die. You must not be
+silly.”
+
+“All right,” Catherine said. “I’ll come and stay with you nights,” she
+said. It was very hard for her to talk.
+
+“Please go out of the room,” the doctor said. “You cannot talk.”
+Catherine winked at me, her face gray. “I’ll be right outside,” I said.
+
+“Don’t worry, darling,” Catherine said. “I’m not a bit afraid. It’s just
+a dirty trick.”
+
+“You dear, brave sweet.”
+
+I waited outside in the hall. I waited a long time. The nurse came to
+the door and came over to me. “I’m afraid Mrs. Henry is very ill,” she
+said. “I’m afraid for her.”
+
+“Is she dead?”
+
+“No, but she is unconscious.”
+
+It seems she had one hemorrhage after another. They couldn’t stop it. I
+went into the room and stayed with Catherine until she died. She was
+unconscious all the time, and it did not take her very long to die.
+
+
+
+Outside the room, in the hall, I spoke to the doctor, “is there anything
+I can do to-night?”
+
+“No. There is nothing to do. Can I take you to your hotel?”
+
+“No, thank you. I am going to stay here a while.”
+
+“I know there is nothing to say. I cannot tell you——”
+
+“No,” I said. “There’s nothing to say.”
+
+“Good-night,” he said. “I cannot take you to your hotel?”
+
+“No, thank you.”
+
+“It was the only thing to do,” he said. “The operation proved——”
+
+“I do not want to talk about it,” I said.
+
+“I would like to take you to your hotel.”
+
+“No, thank you.”
+
+He went down the hall. I went to the door of the room.
+
+“You can’t come in now,” one of the nurses said.
+
+“Yes I can,” I said.
+
+“You can’t come in yet.”
+
+“You get out,” I said. “The other one too.”
+
+But after I had got them out and shut the door and turned off the light
+it wasn’t any good. It was like saying good-by to a statue. After a
+while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in
+the rain.
+
+                                THE END
+
+
+
+
+                           TRANSCRIBER NOTES
+
+Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple
+spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
+
+Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors
+occur.
+
+[The end of _A Farewell to Arms_ by Ernest Hemingway]
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75201 ***