A farewell to arms
“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