A Farewell to Arms Page 9

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.

  18

  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 headwaiter, 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 he 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."

  19

  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 caf� 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 caf�. 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 mechanotherapy treatments. Sometimes I stopped in at the AngloAmerican 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?"