A farewell to arms
“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.”