A farewell to arms
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