A Farewell to Arms

CHAPTER XXI

In September the first cool nights came, then the days were cool and the leaves on the trees in the park began to turn color and we knew the summer was gone. The fighting at the front went very badly and they could not take San Gabriele. The fighting on the Bainsizza plateau was over and by the middle of the month the fighting for San Gabriele was about over too. They could not take it. Ettore was gone back to the front. The horses were gone to Rome and there was no more racing. Crowell had gone to Rome too, to be sent back to America. There were riots twice in the town against the war and bad rioting in Turin. A British major at the club told me the Italians had lost one hundred and fifty thousand men on the Bainsizza plateau and on San Gabriele. He said they had lost forty thousand on the Carso besides. We had a drink and he talked. He said the fighting was over for the year down here and that the Italians had bitten off more than they could chew. He said the offensive in Flanders was going to the bad. If they killed men as they did this fall the Allies would be cooked in another year. He said we were all cooked but we were all right as long as we did not know it. We were all cooked. The thing was not to recognize it. The last country to realize they were cooked would win the war. We had another drink. Was I on somebody’s staff? No. He was. It was all balls. We were alone in the club sitting back in one of the big leather sofas. His boots were smoothly polished dull leather. They were beautiful boots. He said it was all balls. They thought only in divisions and man-power. They all squabbled about divisions and only killed them when they got them. They were all cooked. The Germans won the victories. By God they were soldiers. The old Hun was a soldier. But they were cooked too. We were all cooked. I asked about Russia. He said they were cooked already. I’d soon see they were cooked. Then the Austrians were cooked too. If they got some Hun divisions they could do it. Did he think they would attack this fall? Of course they would. The Italians were cooked. Everybody knew they were cooked. The old Hun would come down through the Trentino and cut the railway at Vicenza and then where would the Italians be? They tried that in ’sixteen, I said. Not with Germans. Yes, I said. But they probably wouldn’t do that, he said. It was too simple. They’d try something complicated and get royally cooked. I had to go, I said. I had to get back to the hospital. “Good-by,” he said. Then cheerily, “Every sort of luck!” There was a great contrast between his world pessimism and personal cheeriness.

I stopped at a barber shop and was shaved and went home to the hospital. My leg was as well as it would get for a long time. I had been up for examination three days before. There were still some treatments to take before my course at the Ospedale Maggiore was finished and I walked along the side street practising not limping. An old man was cutting silhouettes under an arcade. I stopped to watch him. Two girls were posing and he cut their silhouettes together, snipping very fast and looking at them, his head on one side. The girls were giggling. He showed me the silhouettes before he pasted them on white paper and handed them to the girls.

“They’re beautiful,” he said. “How about you, Tenente?”

The girls went away looking at their silhouettes and laughing. They were nice-looking girls. One of them worked in the wine shop across from the hospital.

“All right,” I said.

“Take your cap off.”

“No. With it on.”

“It will not be so beautiful,” the old man said. “But,” he brightened, “it will be more military.”

He snipped away at the black paper, then separated the two thicknesses and pasted the profiles on a card and handed them to me.

“How much?”

“That’s all right.” He waved his hand. “I just made them for you.”

“Please.” I brought out some coppers. “For pleasure.”

“No. I did them for a pleasure. Give them to your girl.”

“Many thanks until we meet.”

“Until I see thee.”

I went on to the hospital. There were some letters, an official one, and some others. I was to have three weeks’ convalescent leave and then return to the front. I read it over carefully. Well, that was that. The convalescent leave started October fourth when my course was finished. Three weeks was twenty-one days. That made October twenty-fifth. I told them I would not be in and went to the restaurant a little way up the street from the hospital for supper and read my letters and the Corriere Della Sera at the table. There was a letter from my grandfather, containing family news, patriotic encouragement, a draft for two hundred dollars, and a few clippings; a dull letter from the priest at our mess, a letter from a man I knew who was flying with the French and had gotten in with a wild gang and was telling about it, and a note from Rinaldi asking me how long I was going to skulk in Milano and what was all the news? He wanted me to bring him phonograph records and enclosed a list. I drank a small bottle of chianti with the meal, had a coffee afterward with a glass of cognac, finished the paper, put my letters in my pocket, left the paper on the table with the tip and went out. In my room at the hospital I undressed, put on pajamas and a dressing-gown, pulled down the curtains on the door that opened onto the balcony and sitting up in bed read Boston papers from a pile Mrs. Meyers had left for her boys at the hospital. The Chicago White Sox were winning the American League pennant and the New York Giants were leading the National League. Babe Ruth was a pitcher then playing for Boston. The papers were dull, the news was local and stale, and the war news was all old. The American news was all training camps. I was glad I wasn’t in a training camp. The baseball news was all I could read and I did not have the slightest interest in it. A number of papers together made it impossible to read with interest. It was not very timely but I read at it for a while. I wondered if America really got into the war, if they would close down the major leagues. They probably wouldn’t. There was still racing in Milan and the war could not be much worse. They had stopped racing in France. That was where our horse Japalac came from. Catherine was not due on duty until nine o’clock. I heard her passing along the floor when she first came on duty and once saw her pass in the hall. She went to several other rooms and finally came into mine.

“I’m late, darling,” she said. “There was a lot to do. How are you?”

I told her about my papers and the leave.

“That’s lovely,” she said. “Where do you want to go?”

“Nowhere. I want to stay here.”

“That’s silly. You pick a place to go and I’ll come too.”

“How will you work it?”

“I don’t know. But I will.”

“You’re pretty wonderful.”

“No I’m not. But life isn’t hard to manage when you’ve nothing to lose.”

“How do you mean?”

“Nothing. I was only thinking how small obstacles seemed that once were so big.”

“I should think it might be hard to manage.”

“No it won’t, darling. If necessary I’ll simply leave. But it won’t come to that.”

“Where should we go?”

“I don’t care. Anywhere you want. Anywhere we don’t know people.”

“Don’t you care where we go?”

“No. I’ll like any place.”

She seemed upset and taut.

“What’s the matter, Catherine?”

“Nothing. Nothing’s the matter.”

“Yes there is.”

“No nothing. Really nothing.”

“I know there is. Tell me, darling. You can tell me.”

“It’s nothing.”

“Tell me.”

“I don’t want to. I’m afraid I’ll make you unhappy or worry you.”

“No it won’t.”

“You’re sure? It doesn’t worry me but I’m afraid to worry you.”

“It won’t if it doesn’t worry you.”

“I don’t want to tell.”

“Tell it.”

“Do I have to?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to have a baby, darling. It’s almost three months along. You’re not worried, are you? Please please don’t. You mustn’t worry.”

“All right.”

“Is it all right?”

“Of course.”

“I did everything. I took everything but it didn’t make any difference.”

“I’m not worried.”

“I couldn’t help it, darling, and I haven’t worried about it. You mustn’t worry or feel badly.”

“I only worry about you.”

“That’s it. That’s what you mustn’t do. People have babies all the time. Everybody has babies. It’s a natural thing.”

“You’re pretty wonderful.”

“No I’m not. But you mustn’t mind, darling. I’ll try and not make trouble for you. I know I’ve made trouble now. But haven’t I been a good girl until now? You never knew it, did you?”

“No.”

“It will all be like that. You simply mustn’t worry. I can see you’re worrying. Stop it. Stop it right away. Wouldn’t you like a drink, darling? I know a drink always makes you feel cheerful.”

“No. I feel cheerful. And you’re pretty wonderful.”

“No I’m not. But I’ll fix everything to be together if you pick out a place for us to go. It ought to be lovely in October. We’ll have a lovely time, darling, and I’ll write you every day while you’re at the front.”

“Where will you be?”

“I don’t know yet. But somewhere splendid. I’ll look after all that.”

We were quiet awhile and did not talk. Catherine was sitting on the bed and I was looking at her but we did not touch each other. We were apart as when some one comes into a room and people are self-conscious. She put out her hand and took mine.

“You aren’t angry are you, darling?”

“No.”

“And you don’t feel trapped?”

“Maybe a little. But not by you.”

“I didn’t mean by me. You mustn’t be stupid. I meant trapped at all.”

“You always feel trapped biologically.”

She went away a long way without stirring or removing her hand.

“‘Always’ isn’t a pretty word.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. But you see I’ve never had a baby and I’ve never even loved any one. And I’ve tried to be the way you wanted and then you talk about ‘always.’”

“I could cut off my tongue,” I offered.

“Oh, darling!” she came back from wherever she had been. “You mustn’t mind me.” We were both together again and the self-consciousness was gone. “We really are the same one and we mustn’t misunderstand on purpose.”

“We won’t.”

“But people do. They love each other and they misunderstand on purpose and they fight and then suddenly they aren’t the same one.”

“We won’t fight.”

“We mustn’t. Because there’s only us two and in the world there’s all the rest of them. If anything comes between us we’re gone and then they have us.”

“They won’t get us,” I said. “Because you’re too brave. Nothing ever happens to the brave.”

“They die of course.”

“But only once.”

“I don’t know. Who said that?”

“The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one?”

“Of course. Who said it?”

“I don’t know.”

“He was probably a coward,” she said. “He knew a great deal about cowards but nothing about the brave. The brave dies perhaps two thousand deaths if he’s intelligent. He simply doesn’t mention them.”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to see inside the head of the brave.”

“Yes. That’s how they keep that way.”

“You’re an authority.”

“You’re right, darling. That was deserved.”

“You’re brave.”

“No,” she said. “But I would like to be.”

“I’m not,” I said, “I know where I stand. I’ve been out long enough to know. I’m like a ball-player that bats two hundred and thirty and knows he’s no better.”

“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.”

She brought them from under the counter.

“Have you any need for a sword?” she asked. “I have some used swords very cheap.”

“I’m going to the front,” I said.

“Oh yes, then you won’t need a sword,” she said.

I paid for the cartridges and the pistol, filled the magazine and put it in place, put the pistol in my empty holster, filled the extra clips with cartridges and put them in the leather slots on the holster and then buckled on my belt. The pistol felt heavy on the belt. Still, I thought, it was better to have a regulation pistol. You could always get shells.

“Now we’re fully armed,” I said. “That was the one thing I had to remember to do. Some one got my other one going to the hospital.”

“I hope it’s a good pistol,” Catherine said.

“Was there anything else?” the woman asked.

“I don’t believe so.”

“The pistol has a lanyard,” she said.

“So I noticed.” The woman wanted to sell something else.

“You don’t need a whistle?”

“I don’t believe so.”

The woman said good-by and we went out onto the sidewalk. Catherine looked in the window. The woman looked out and bowed to us.

“What are those little mirrors set in wood for?”

“They’re for attracting birds. They twirl them out in the field and larks see them and come out and the Italians shoot them.”

“They are an ingenious people,” Catherine said. “You don’t shoot larks do you, darling, in America?”

“Not especially.”

We crossed the street and started to walk up the other side.

“I feel better now,” Catherine said. “I felt terrible when we started.”

“We always feel good when we’re together.”

“We always will be together.”

“Yes, except that I’m going away at midnight.”

“Don’t think about it, darling.”

We walked on up the street. The fog made the lights yellow.

“Aren’t you tired?” Catherine asked.

“How about you?”

“I’m all right. It’s fun to walk.”

“But let’s not do it too long.”

“No.”

We turned down a side street where there were no lights and walked in the street. I stopped and kissed Catherine. While I kissed her I felt her hand on my shoulder. She had pulled my cape around her so it covered both of us. We were standing in the street against a high wall.

“Let’s go some place,” I said.

“Good,” said Catherine. We walked on along the street until it came out onto a wider street that was beside a canal. On the other side was a brick wall and buildings. Ahead, down the street, I saw a street-car cross a bridge.

“We can get a cab up at the bridge,” I said. We stood on the bridge in the fog waiting for a carriage. Several street-cars passed, full of people going home. Then a carriage came along but there was some one in it. The fog was turning to rain.

“We could walk or take a tram,” Catherine said.

“One will be along,” I said. “They go by here.”

“Here one comes,” she said.

The driver stopped his horse and lowered the metal sign on his meter. The top of the carriage was up and there were drops of water on the driver’s coat. His varnished hat was shining in the wet. We sat back in the seat together and the top of the carriage made it dark.

“Where did you tell him to go?”

“To the station. There’s a hotel across from the station where we can go.”

“We can go the way we are? Without luggage?”

“Yes,” I said.

It was a long ride to the station up side streets in the rain.

“Won’t we have dinner?” Catherine asked. “I’m afraid I’ll be hungry.”

“We’ll have it in our room.”

“I haven’t anything to wear. I haven’t even a nightgown.”

“We’ll get one,” I said and called to the driver.

“Go to the Via Manzoni and up that.” He nodded and turned off to the left at the next corner. On the big street Catherine watched for a shop.

“Here’s a place,” she said. I stopped the driver and Catherine got out, walked across the sidewalk and went inside. I sat back in the carriage and waited for her. It was raining and I could smell the wet street and the horse steaming in the rain. She came back with a package and got in and we drove on.

“I was very extravagant, darling,” she said, “but it’s a fine nightgown.”

At the hotel I asked Catherine to wait in the carriage while I went in and spoke to the manager. There were plenty of rooms. Then I went out to the carriage, paid the driver, and Catherine and I walked in together. The small boy in buttons carried the package. The manager bowed us toward the elevator. There was much red plush and brass. The manager went up in the elevator with us.

“Monsieur and Madame wish dinner in their room?”

“Yes. Will you have the menu brought up?” I said.

“You wish something special for dinner. Some game or a soufflet?”

The elevator passed three floors with a click each time, then clicked and stopped.

“What have you as game?”

“I could get a pheasant, or a woodcock.”

“A woodcock,” I said. We walked down the corridor. The carpet was worn. There were many doors. The manager stopped and unlocked a door and opened it.

“Here you are. A lovely room.”

The small boy in buttons put the package on the table in the centre of the room. The manager opened the curtains.

“It is foggy outside,” he said. The room was furnished in red plush. There were many mirrors, two chairs and a large bed with a satin coverlet. A door led to the bathroom.

“I will send up the menu,” the manager said. He bowed and went out.

I went to the window and looked out, then pulled a cord that shut the thick plush curtains. Catherine was sitting on the bed, looking at the cut glass chandelier. She had taken her hat off and her hair shone under the light. She saw herself in one of the mirrors and put her hands to her hair. I saw her in three other mirrors. She did not look happy. She let her cape fall on the bed.

“What’s the matter, darling?”

“I never felt like a whore before,” she said. I went over to the window and pulled the curtain aside and looked out. I had not thought it would be like this.

“You’re not a whore.”

“I know it, darling. But it isn’t nice to feel like one.” Her voice was dry and flat.

“This was the best hotel we could get in,” I said. I looked out the window. Across the square were the lights of the station. There were carriages going by on the street and I saw the trees in the park. The lights from the hotel shone on the wet pavement. Oh, hell, I thought, do we have to argue now?

“Come over here please,” Catherine said. The flatness was all gone out of her voice. “Come over, please. I’m a good girl again.” I looked over at the bed. She was smiling.

I went over and sat on the bed beside her and kissed her.

“You’re my good girl.”

“I’m certainly yours,” she said.

After we had eaten we felt fine, and then after, we felt very happy and in a little time the room felt like our own home. My room at the hospital had been our own home and this room was our home too in the same way.

Catherine wore my tunic over her shoulders while we ate. We were very hungry and the meal was good and we drank a bottle of Capri and a bottle of St. Estephe. I drank most of it but Catherine drank some and it made her feel splendid. For dinner we had a woodcock with soufflé potatoes and purée de marron, a salad, and zabaione for dessert.

“It’s a fine room,” Catherine said. “It’s a lovely room. We should have stayed here all the time we’ve been in Milan.”

“It’s a funny room. But it’s nice.”

“Vice is a wonderful thing,” Catherine said. “The people who go in for it seem to have good taste about it. The red plush is really fine. It’s just the thing. And the mirrors are very attractive.”

“You’re a lovely girl.”

“I don’t know how a room like this would be for waking up in the morning. But it’s really a splendid room.” I poured another glass of St. Estephe.

“I wish we could do something really sinful,” Catherine said. “Everything we do seems so innocent and simple. I can’t believe we do anything wrong.”

“You’re a grand girl.”

“I only feel hungry. I get terribly hungry.”

“You’re a fine simple girl,” I said.

“I am a simple girl. No one ever understood it except you.”

“Once when I first met you I spent an afternoon thinking how we would go to the Hotel Cavour together and how it would be.”

“That was awfully cheeky of you. This isn’t the Cavour is it?”

“No. They wouldn’t have taken us in there.”

“They’ll take us in some time. But that’s how we differ, darling. I never thought about anything.”

“Didn’t you ever at all?”

“A little,” she said.

“Oh you’re a lovely girl.”

I poured another glass of wine.

“I’m a very simple girl,” Catherine said.

“I didn’t think so at first. I thought you were a crazy girl.”

“I was a little crazy. But I wasn’t crazy in any complicated manner. I didn’t confuse you did I, darling?”

“Wine is a grand thing,” I said. “It makes you forget all the bad.”

“It’s lovely,” said Catherine. “But it’s given my father gout very badly.”

“Have you a father?”

“Yes,” said Catherine. “He has gout. You won’t ever have to meet him. Haven’t you a father?”

“No,” I said. “A step-father.”

“Will I like him?”

“You won’t have to meet him.”

“We have such a fine time,” Catherine said. “I don’t take any interest in anything else any more. I’m so very happy married to you.”

The waiter came and took away the things. After a while we were very still and we could hear the rain. Down below on the street a motor car honked.

“‘But at my back I always hear

Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near,’”

I said.

“I know that poem,” Catherine said. “It’s by Marvell. But it’s about a girl who wouldn’t live with a man.”

My head felt very clear and cold and I wanted to talk facts.

“Where will you have the baby?”

“I don’t know. The best place I can find.”

“How will you arrange it?”

“The best way I can. Don’t worry, darling. We may have several babies before the war is over.”

“It’s nearly time to go.”

“I know. You can make it time if you want.”

“No.”

“Then don’t worry, darling. You were fine until now and now you’re worrying.”

“I won’t. How often will you write?”

“Every day. Do they read your letters?”

“They can’t read English enough to hurt any.”

“I’ll make them very confusing,” Catherine said.

“But not too confusing.”

“I’ll just make them a little confusing.”

“I’m afraid we have to start to go.”

“All right, darling.”

“I hate to leave our fine house.”

“So do I.”

“But we have to go.”

“All right. But we’re never settled in our home very long.”

“We will be.”

“I’ll have a fine home for you when you come back.”

“Maybe I’ll be back right away.”

“Perhaps you’ll be hurt just a little in the foot.”

“Or the lobe of the ear.”

“No I want your ears the way they are.”

“And not my feet?”

“Your feet have been hit already.”

“We have to go, darling. Really.”

“All right. You go first.”

CHAPTER XXIV

We walked down the stairs instead of taking the elevator. The carpet on the stairs was worn. I had paid for the dinner when it came up and the waiter, who had brought it, was sitting on a chair near the door. He jumped up and bowed and I went with him into the side room and paid the bill for the room. The manager had remembered me as a friend and refused payment in advance but when he retired he had remembered to have the waiter stationed at the door so that I should not get out without paying. I suppose that had happened; even with his friends. One had so many friends in a war.

I asked the waiter to get us a carriage and he took Catherine’s package that I was carrying and went out with an umbrella. Outside through the window we saw him crossing the street in the rain. We stood in the side room and looked out the window.

“How do you feel, Cat?”

“Sleepy.”

“I feel hollow and hungry.”

“Have you anything to eat?”

“Yes, in my musette.”

I saw the carriage coming. It stopped, the horse’s head hanging in the rain, and the waiter stepped out, opened his umbrella, and came toward the hotel. We met him at the door and walked out under the umbrella down the wet walk to the carriage at the curb. Water was running in the gutter.

“There is your package on the seat,” the waiter said. He stood with the umbrella until we were in and I had tipped him.

“Many thanks. Pleasant journey,” he said. The coachman lifted the reins and the horse started. The waiter turned away under the umbrella and went toward the hotel. We drove down the street and turned to the left, then came around to the right in front of the station. There were two carabinieri standing under the light just out of the rain. The light shone on their hats. The rain was clear and transparent against the light from the station. A porter came out from under the shelter of the station, his shoulders up against the rain.

“No,” I said. “Thanks. I don’t need thee.”

He went back under the shelter of the archway. I turned to Catherine. Her face was in the shadow from the hood of the carriage.

“We might as well say good-by.”

“I can’t go in?”

“No.”

“Good-by, Cat.”

“Will you tell him the hospital?”

“Yes.”

I told the driver the address to drive to. He nodded.

“Good-by,” I said. “Take good care of yourself and young Catherine.”

“Good-by, darling.”

“Good-by,” I said. I stepped out into the rain and the carriage started. Catherine leaned out and I saw her face in the light. She smiled and waved. The carriage went up the street, Catherine pointed in toward the archway. I looked, there were only the two carabinieri and the archway. I realized she meant for me to get in out of the rain. I went in and stood and watched the carriage turn the corner. Then I started through the station and down the runway to the train.

The porter was on the platform looking for me. I followed him into the train, crowding past people and along the aisle and in through a door to where the machine-gunner sat in the corner of a full compartment. My rucksack and musettes were above his head on the luggage rack. There were many men standing in the corridor and the men in the compartment all looked at us when we came in. There were not enough places in the train and every one was hostile. The machine-gunner stood up for me to sit down. Some one tapped me on the shoulder. I looked around. It was a very tall gaunt captain of artillery with a red scar along his jaw. He had looked through the glass on the corridor and then come in.

“What do you say?” I asked. I had turned and faced him. He was taller than I and his face was very thin under the shadow of his cap-visor and the scar was new and shiny. Every one in the compartment was looking at me.

“You can’t do that,” he said. “You can’t have a soldier save you a place.”

“I have done it.”

He swallowed and I saw his Adam’s apple go up and then down. The machine-gunner stood in front of the place. Other men looked in through the glass. No one in the compartment said anything.

“You have no right to do that. I was here two hours before you came.”

“What do you want?”

“The seat.”

“So do I.”

I watched his face and could feel the whole compartment against me. I did not blame them. He was in the right. But I wanted the seat. Still no one said anything.

Oh, hell, I thought.

“Sit down, Signor Capitano,” I said. The machine-gunner moved out of the way and the tall captain sat down. He looked at me. His face seemed hurt. But he had the seat. “Get my things,” I said to the machine-gunner. We went out in the corridor. The train was full and I knew there was no chance of a place. I gave the porter and the machine-gunner ten lire apiece. They went down the corridor and outside on the platform looking in the windows but there were no places.

“Maybe some will get off at Brescia,” the porter said.

“More will get on at Brescia,” said the machine-gunner. I said good-by to them and we shook hands and they left. They both felt badly. Inside the train we were all standing in the corridor when the train started. I watched the lights of the station and the yards as we went out. It was still raining and soon the windows were wet and you could not see out. Later I slept on the floor of the corridor; first putting my pocket-book with my money and papers in it inside my shirt and trousers so that it was inside the leg of my breeches. I slept all night, waking at Brescia and Verona when more men got on the train, but going back to sleep at once. I had my head on one of the musettes and my arms around the other and I could feel the pack and they could all walk over me if they wouldn’t step on me. Men were sleeping on the floor all down the corridor. Others stood holding on to the window rods or leaning against the doors. That train was always crowded.