path: root/75201-0.txt

*** 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 ***