A farewell to arms
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.”