| main | ongoing | archive | private |
- ...and in the fall when the rains came the leaves all fell from the chestnut trees and the branches were bare and the trunks black with rain. The vineyards were thin and bare-branched too and all the country was wet and brown and dead with autumn.
- ...lifting the spaghetti on the fork until the loose strands hung clear then lowering it into the mouth, or else using a continuous lift and sucking into the mouth...
- "All thinking men are atheists," the major said.
- ...as I went in, there was the smell of marble floors and hospital. It was all as I had left it except that now it was spring.
- I myself felt as badly as he did and could not understand why I had not gone. It was what I had wanted to do and I tried to explain how one thing had led to another and finally he saw it and understood that I had wanted to go and it was almost all right. I had drunk much wine and afterward coffee and Strega and I explained, winefully, how we did not do the things we wanted to do; we never did such things.
- I had wanted to go to Abruzzi. I had gone to no place where the roads were frozen and hard as iron, where it was clear cold and dry and the snow was dry and powdery and hare-tracks in the snow and the peasants took off their hats and called you Lord and there was good hunting. I had gone to no such place but to the smoke of cafes and nights when the room whirled and you needed to look at the wall to make it stop, nights in bed, drunk, when you knew that that was all there was, and the strange excitement of waking and not knowing who was with you, and the world all unreal in the dark and so exciting that you must resume again unknowing and not caring in the night, sure that this was all and all and all and not caring. Suddenly to care very much and to sleep to wake with it sometimes morning and all that had been there gone and everything sharp and hard and clear and sometimes a dispute about the cost. Sometimes still pleasant and fond and warm and breakfast and lunch. Sometimes all niceness gone and glad to get out on the street but always another day starting and then another night. I tried to tell about the night and the difference between the night and the day and how the night was better unless the day was very clean and cold and I could not tell it; as I cannot tell it now. But if you have had it you know. (13)
- ...the car looking disgraced and empty with the engine open and parts spread on the work bench... (14)
- The coffee was a pale gray sweet with condensed milk. Outside the window it was a lovely spring morning. There was that beginning of a feeling of dryness in the nose that meant the day would be hot later on. (16)
- "What an odd thing -- to be in the Italian army." (-) "It's not really the army. It's only the ambulance." (-) "It's very odd though. Why did you do it?" (-) "I don't know," I said. "There isn't always an explanation for everything." (-) "Oh, isn't there? I was brought up to believe there was." (-) "That's awfully nice." (18)
- Miss Barkley was quite tall. She wore what seemed to me to be a nurse's uniform, was blonde and had a tawny skin and gray eyes. I thought she was very beautiful. (18)
- "People can't realize what France is like. If they did, it couldn't all go on. He didn't have a sabre cut. They blew him all to bits." (20)
- "...there's a war on, you know." (-) "I said I knew." (22)
- "You're the American in the Italian army?" she asked. (22)
- The Italian salute never seemed made for export. (23)
- "Let's drop the war." (-) "It's very hard. There's no place to drop it." (-) "Let's drop it anyway." (-) "All right." (26)
- "You have that pleasant air of a dog in heat." (27)
- I did not love Catherine Barkley nor had any idea of loving her. This was a game, like bridge, in which you said things instead of playing cards. Like bridge you had to pretend you were playing for money or playing for some stakes. Nobody had mentioned what the stakes were. It was all right with me. (29-30)
- It was a hot day and the sky was very bright and blue and the road was white and dusty. I sat in the high seat of the Fiat and thought about nothing. (33)
- "Jesus Christ, ain't this a goddamn war?" (35)
- ...the river, cloudy with snow-water... (36)
- Well, I knew I would not be killed. Not in this war. It did not have anything to do with me. It seemed no more dangerous to me myself than war in the movies. I wished to God it was over though. (37)
- I wanted to go to Austria without war. I wanted to go to the Black Forest. I wanted to go to the Hartz Mountains. Where were the Hartz Mountains anyway? (...) I could go to Spain if there was no war. The sun was going down and the day was cooling off. (37)
- Because we would not wear any clothes because it was so hot and the window open and the swallows flying over the roofs of the houses and when it was dark afterwards and you went to the window very small bats hunting over the houses and close down over the trees and we would drink the capri and the door locked and it hot and only a sheet and the whole night and we would both love each other all night in the hot night in Milan. That was how it ought to be. (38)
- They talked too much at the mess and I drank wine because tonight we were not all brothers unless I drank a little and talked... (38)
- The wine was bad but not dull. It took the enamel off your teeth and left it on the roof of your mouth. (39)
- He came back with a handful of roasted coffee beans. "Chew those, baby, and God be with you." (40)
- I started down the driveway. The outlines of the cypresses that lined it were sharp and clear. I looked back and saw Rinaldi standing watching me and waved to him. (41)
- "Thank you very much," I said. "Good night." (-) I went out the door and suddenly I felt lonely and empty. (41)
- Nobody knew anything about it althought they all spoke with great positiveness and strategical knowledge. (42)
- She was unclapsing something from her neck. She put it in my hand. "It's a Saint Anthony," she said. "And come tomorrow night." (-) "You're not a Catholic, are you?" (-) "No. But they say a Saint Anthony's very useful." (-) "I'll take care of him for you. Good-by." (43)
- The saint hung down on the outside of my uniform and I undid the throat of my tunic, unbuttoned the shirt collar and dropped him in under the shirt. I felt him in his metal box against my chest while we drove. Then I forgot about him. After I was wounded I never found him. Some one probably got it at one of the dressing stations. (44)
- Driving in convoy is not unpleasant if you are the first car and I settled back in the seat and watched the country. (44)
- ...and sometimes the water spread like a sheen over the pebbly bed. Close to the bank I saw deep pools, the water blue like the sky. (44)
- ...the broken houses of the little town that was to be taken. (45)
- They were silent until I went out. They were all mechanics and they hated the war. (48)
- We sat on the ground with our backs against the wall and smoked. Outside it was nearly dark. The earth of the dugout was warm and dry and I let my shoulders back against the wall, sitting on the small of my back, and relaxed. (48)
- "They are brave and have good discipline," I said. (48)
- "If everybody would not attack the war would be over," Manera said. (49)
- "There is nothing worse than war." (-) ("Defeat is worse." (50)
- "I think you do not know anything about being conquered and so you think it is not bad." (50)
- "I know it is bad but we must finish it." (-) "It doesn't finish. There is no finish to a war." (-) "Yes there is." (-) Passini shook his head. (-) "War is not won by victory." (50)
- There was a cough, a noise like a railway engine starting and then an explosion that shook the earth again. (54)
- Through the other noise I heard a cough, then came the chuh-chuh-chuh-chuh -- then there was a flash, as when a blast furnace door is swung open, and a roar that started white and went red and on and on in a rushing wind. I tried to breathe but my breath would not come and I felt myself rush bodily out of myself and out and out and out and all the time bodily in the wind. I went out swiftly, all of myself, and I knew I was dead and that it had all been a mistake to think you just died. Then I floated, and instead of going on I felt myself slide back. I breathed and I was back. The ground was torn up and in front of my head there was a splintered beam of wood. In the jolt of my head I heard somebody crying. I thought somebody was screaming. I tried to move but I could not move. (54)
- "Mama mama mia." Then he was quiet, biting his arm, the stump of his leg twitching. (55)
- I sat up straight and as I did so something inside my head moved like the weights on a doll's eyes and it hit me inside in back of my eyeballs. My legs felt warm and wet and my shoes were wet and warm inside. I knew that I was hit and leaned over and put my hand on my knee. My knee wasn't there. My hand went in and my knee was down on my shin. (55)
- "Come, come," he said. "Don't be a bloody hero." (58)
- They lifted me onto the table. It was hard and slippery. There were many strong smells, chemical smells and the sweet smell of blood. (59)
- Lacerations of the scalp (he probed -- Does that hurt? -- Christ, yes!) with possible fracture of the skull. (59)
- "Your blood coagulates beautifully." (59)
- "All right, good luck and Vive la France." (-) "He's an American," one of the other captains said. (-) "I thought you said he was a Frenchman." (60)
- The pain that the major had spoken about had started and all that was happening was without interest or relation. (60)
- The stream kept on. In the dark I could not see where it came from the canvas overhead. I tried to move sideways so that it did not fall on me. Where it had run down under my shirt it was warm and sticky. I was cold and my leg hurt so that it made me sick. After a while the stream from the stretcher above lessened and started to drip again and I heard and felt the canvas above move as the man on the stretcher settled more comfortably. (-) "How is he?" the Englishman called back. "We're almost up." (-) "He's dead I think," I said. (-) The drops fell very slowly, as they fall from an icicle after the sun has gone. It was cold in the car in the night as the road climbed. At the post on the top they took the stretcher out and put another in and we went on. (61)
- It was a hot day and there were many flies in the room. (62)
- "Because you are gravely wounded. They say if you can prove you did any heroic act you can get the silver. Otherwise it will be the bronze. Tell me exactly what happened. Did you do any heroic act?" (-) "No," I said. "I was blown up while we were eating cheese." (63)
- "Oh I love to tease you, baby. With your priest and your English girl, and really you are just like me underneath." (-) "No, I'm not." (-) "Yes, we are. You are really an Italian. All fire and smoke and nothing inside. You only pretend to be an American. We are brothers and we love each other." (66)
- It made me feel very young to have the dark come after the dusk and then remain. It was like being put to bed after early supper. (68)
- "But there in my country it is understood that a man may love God. It is not a dirty joke." (71)
- He looked at me and smiled. (-) "You understand but you do not love God." (-) "No." (-) "You do not love Him t all?" (-) "I am afraid of Him in the night sometimes." (-) "You should love Him." (-) I don't love much." (-) "Yes," he said. "You do. What you tell me about in the nights. That is not true. That is only passion and lust. When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve." (-) "I don't love." (-) "You will. I know you well. Then you will be happy." (-) "I'm happy. I've always been happy." (-) "It is another thing. You cannot know about it unless you have it." (-) "Well," I said. "If I ever get it I will tell you." (72)
- Aquila was a fine town. It was cool in the summer at night and the spring in Abruzzi was the most beautiful in Italy. But what was lovely was the fall to go hunting through the chestnut woods. The birds were all good because they fed on grapes and you never took a lunch because the peasants were always honored if you would eat with them at their houses. After a while I went to sleep. (73)
- When they lifted you up out of bed to carry you into the dressing room you could look out of the window and see the new graves in the garden. (75)
- They were watering the street and it smelled of the early morning. (81)
- His breath came in my face metallic with garlic and red wine. (82)
- They left me alone and I lay in bed and read the papers awhile, the news from the front, and the list of dead officers with their decorations and then reached down and brought up the bottle of Cinzano and held it straight up on my stomach, the cool glass against my stomach, and took little drinks making rings on my stomach from holding the bottle there between drinks, and watched it get dark outside oer the roofs of the town. The swallows circled around and I watched them and the night-hawks flying above the roofs and drank the Cinzano. Miss Gage brought up a glass with some eggnog in it. I lowered the vermouth bottle to the other side of the bed when she came in. (87)
- I slept heavily except once I woke sweating and scared and then went back to sleep trying to stay outside of my dream. (88)
- 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. (95)
- Outside the sun was up over the roofs and I could see the points of the cathedral with the sunlight on them. I was clean inside and outside waiting for the doctor. (105)
- "You'll die then. Fight or die. That's what people do." (108)
- "How is your head?" She touched the top of it with her fingers. It was sensitive like a foot that had gone to sleep. (109)
- Catherine Barkley took 3 nights off night duty and then she came back on again. It was though we met again after each of us had been away on a long journey. (111)
- 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 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. (114)
- 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. (114)
- There isn't any me. I'm you. Don't make up a separate me. (115)
- 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. (119)
- He was a legitimate hero who bored everyone he met. (124)
- Outside the mist turned to rain and in a little while it was raining hard and we heard it drumming on the roof. (125)
- "All right. I'm afraid of the rain because sometimes I see me dead in it." (-) "No." (-) "And sometimes I see me dead in it." (-) "That's more likely." (-) "No, it's not, darling. Because I can keep you safe. I know I can. But nobody can help themselves." (126)
- "It's all right, I suppose," she said. "But, darling, I can't stand to see so many people." (...) We backed a horse named Light For Me that finished 4th in a field of 5. We leaned on the fence and watched the horses go by, their hoofs thudding as they went past, and saw the mountains off in the distance and Milan beyond the trees and the fields. (-) "I feel so much cleaner," Catherine said. The horses were coming back, through the gate, wet and sweating, the jockeys quieting them and riding up to dismount under the trees. (131)
- "Don't you like it better when we're alone?" (-) "Yes," I said. (-) "I felt very lonely when they were all there." (-) "It's grand here," I said. (...) "You're awfully good to me," she said. (-) After we had been alone awhile we were glad to see the others again. We had a good time. (132)
- 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. (133)
- 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. (134)
- "Good-by," he said. Then cheerily, "Every sort of luck!" There was a great contrast between his world pessimism and personal cheeriness. (134)
- "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." (137)
- We were quiet 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. (138)
- "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." (139-140)
- ...a very short, dumpy, happy-faced woman with white hair. When she cried her whole face went to pieces. (146)
- We walked up on the street. The fog made the lights yellow. (150)
- We stood on the bridge in the fog waiting for a carriage. Several streetcars passed, full of people going home. (...) The fog was turning to rain. (150)
- 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. (153)
- "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 winged 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?" (154)
- "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." (155)
- He swallowed and I saw his Adam's apple go up and then down. (158)
- It was raining and soon the windows were wet and you could not see out. (...) The train was always crowded. (159)
- "I miss the noise of the mess," I said. (172)
- "I never discuss a Saint after dark," I said. The priest looked up from the stew and smiled at me. (173)
- "...It is in defeat that we become Christian." (-) (...) "I don't mean technically Christian. I mean like Our Lord." (-) He said nothing. (-) "We are all gentler now because we are beaten. How would Our Lord have been if Peter had rescued him in the garden?" (178)
- "(The soldiers) were beaten to start with. They were beaten when they took them from their farms and put them in the army. That is why the peasant has wisdom, because he is defeated from the start. Put him in power and see how wise he is." (179)
- I did not say anything. I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain. We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came through, and had read them, on proclamations that were slapped up by the billposters over other proclamations, now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyard at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it. There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names of places had dignity. Certain numbers were the same way and certain dates and these with the names of the places were all you could say and have them mean anything. Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates. (185)
- I felt the rain on my face turn to snow. The flakes were coming heavy and fast in the rain. (186)
- It was getting dark. Guns were firing from the field behind the village and the shells, going away, had a comfortable sound. (186)
- ...to the room where I had lived with Rinaldi. It was raining outside. I went to the window and looked out. It was getting dark and I saw the three cars standing in line under the trees. The trees were dripping in the rain. It was cold and the drops hung to the branches. I went back to Rinaldi's bed and lay down and let sleep take me. (191)
- "We drink it now. Tomorrow maybe we drink rainwater," Aymo said. (191)
- If there were no war we would probably all be in bed. In bed I lay me down my head. Bed and board. Stiff as a board in bed. Catherine was in bed now between two sheets, over her and under her. Which side did she sleep one? Maybe she wasn't asleep. Maybe she was lying thinking about me. Blow, blow, ye western wind. Well, it blew and it wasn't the small rain but the big rain down that rained. Look at it. Christ, that my love were in my arms and I in my bed again. That my love Catherine. That my sweet love Catherine down might rain. Blow her again to me. Well, we were in it. Every one was caught in it and the small rain would not quiet it. "Good-night, Catherine," I said out loud. "I hope you sleep well. If it's too uncomfortable, darling, lie on the other side," I said. "I'll get you some cold water. In a little while it will be morning and then it won't be so bad. I'm sorry he makes you so uncomfortable. Try and go to sleep, sweet." (197)
- Are you really there? (-) Of course I'm here. I wouldn't go away. This doesn't make any difference between us. (197)
- I knew there were many side-roads but did not want one that would lead to nothing. (198)
- His two sergeants were beside him on the seat. They were unshaven but still military looking in the early morning. (199)
- It was large and dark, an abandoned feeling. (201)
- We walked along together all going fast against time. (208)
- I looked back. Aymo lay in the mud with the angle of the embankment. He was quite small and his arms were by his side, his puttee-wrapped legs and muddy boots together, his cap over his face. He looked very dead. It was raining. I had liked him as well as any one I ever knew. (214)
- The stable smelt dry and pleasant in the rain. (...) The barn was half full of hay. (215)
- The hay smelled good and lying in a barn in the hay took away all the years in between. (216)
- The barn was gone now and one year they had cut the hemlock woods and there were only stumps, dried tree-tops, branches and fire-weed where the woods had been. You could not go back. If you did not go forward what happened? You never got back to Milan. And if you got back to Milan what happened? (216)
- The killing came suddenly and unreasonably. (218)
- "They think if they throw away their rifles they can't make them fight." (220)
- "Shoot him if he resists," I heard someone say. (-) "What's the meaning of this?" I tried to shout but my voice was not very loud. (222)
- The questioners had all the efficiency, coldness and command of themselves of Italians who are firing and not being fired on. (223)
- I saw how their minds worked; if they had minds and if they worked. They were all young men and they were saving their country. (224)
- We stood in the rain and were taken out one at a time to be questioned and shot. So far they had shot every one that they had questioned. The questioners had that beautiful detachment and devotion to stern justice of men dealing in death without being in any danger of it. (224-25)
- You do not know how long you are in a river when the current moves swiftly. It seems a long time and it may be very short. The water was cold and in flood and many things passed that had been floated off the banks when the river rose. I was lucky to have a heavy timber to hold on to, and I lay in the icy water with my chin on the wood, holding as easily as I could with both hands. (226)
- It was his (the doctor's) knee all right. The other knee was mine. Doctors did things to you and then it was not your body any more. The head was mine, and the inside of the belly. It was very hungry in there. I could feel it turn over on itself. The head was mine, but not to use, not to think with, only to remember and not too much remember. (231)
- Anger was washed away in the river along with any obligation. (232)
- It was no point of honor. I was not against them. I was through. I wished them luck. There were the good ones, and the brave ones, and the calm ones and the sensible ones, and they deserved it. But it was not my show any more and I wished this bloody train would get to Mestre and I would eat and stop thinking. I have to stop. (232)
- ...and never going away again except together. Probably have to go damned quickly. She would go. I knew she would go. When would we go? That was something to think about. It was getting dark. I lay and thought where we would go. There were many places. (233)
- A wine shop was open and I went in for some coffee. It smelled of early morning, of swept dust, spoons in coffee-glasses and the wet circles left by wine-glasses. (237)
- The coffee was gray with milk and I skimmed the milk scum off the top with a piece of bread. (237)
- "I am in no trouble. But I value the address of a friend." (238)
- The martini felt cool and clean. (244)
- "Don't talk about the war," I said. The was was a long way away. Maybe there wasn't any war. There was no war here. Then I realized it was over for me. But I did not have the feeling that it was really over. I had the feeling of a boy who thinks of what is happening at a certain hour at the schoolhouse from which he has played truant. (245)
- That night at the hotel, in our room with the long empty hall outside and our shoes outside the door, a thick carpet on the floor of the room, outside the windows the rain falling and in the room light and pleasant and cheerful, then the light out and it exciting with smooth sheets and the bed comfortable, feeling that we had come home, feeling no longer alone, waking in the night to find the other one there, and not gone away; all other things were unreal. We slept when we were tired and if we woke the other one woke too so one was not alone. Often a man wishes to be alone and a girl wishes to be alone too and if they love each other they are jealous of that in each other, but I can truly say we never felt that. We could feel alone when we were together, alone against the others. It has only happened to me like that once. I have been alone while I was with many girls and that is the way you can be most lonely. But we were never lonely and never afraid when we were together. I know that the night is not the same as the day: that all things are different, that the things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist, and the night can be a dreadful time for lonely people once their loneliness has started. But with Catherine there was almost no difference in the night except that it was an even better time. If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will no break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry. (249)
- She wanted breakfast. So did I and we had it in bed, the November sunlight coming in the window, and the breakfast tray across my lap. (250)
- Count Greffi was 94 years old. He had been a contemporary of Metternich and was an old man with white hair and mustache and beautiful manners. He had been in the diplomatic service of both Austria and Italy and his birthday parties were the great social service of Milan. He was living to be 100 years old and played a smoothly fluent game of billiards that contrasted with his own 94-year-old brittleness. (254)
- ...and Catherine was not back yet. I lay down on the bed and tried to keep from thinking. (256)
- "Besides, I'm not jealous. I'm just so in love with you that there isn't anything else." (257)
- "I had expected to become more devout as I grow older but somehow I haven't," he said. "It is a great pity." (261)
- "If you ever live to be as old as I am you will find many things strange." (-) "You never seem old." (-) "It is the body that is old. Sometimes I am afraid I will break off a finger as one breaks a stick of chalk. And the spirit is no older and not much wiser." (-) "You are wise." (-) "No, that is the great fallacy; the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful." (261)
- "What do you think of the war really" I asked. (-) "I think it is stupid." (-) "Who will win it?" (-) "Italy." (-) "why?" (-) "They are a younger nation." (-) "Do younger nations always win wars?" (-) "They are apt to for a time." (-) "Then what happens?" (-) "They become older nations." (-) "You said you were not wise." (-) "Dear boy, that is not wisdom. That is cynicism." (-) "It sounds very wise to me." (262)
- "And if you ever become devout pray for me if I am dead. I am asking several of my friends to do that. I had expected to become devout myself but it has not come." I thought he smiled sadly but I could not tell. He was so old and his face was very wrinkled, so that a smile used to many lines that all gradations were lost. (263)
- "Maybe it is too late. Perhaps I have outlived my religious feeling." (-) "My own comes only at night." (-) "Then too you are in love. Do not forget that is a religious feeling." (263)
- It was a cold, wet November wind and I knew it was snowing in the mountains. (267)
- I rowed in the dark keeping the wind in my face. The rain had stopped and only came occasionally in gusts. It was very dark, and the wind was cold. I could see Catherine in the stern but I could not see the water where the blades of the oars dipped. (270)
- I pulled the cork with my pocket-knife and took a long drink. It was smooth and hot and the heat went all through me and I felt warmed and cheerful. "It's lovely brandy," I said. The moon was under again but I could see the shore. (273)
- The motor boat chugged on and on and out of sight in the rain. (276)
- I saw a soldier coming out of a cafe on the road. He wore a gray-green uniform and a helmet like the Germans. He had a healthy-looking face and a little toothbrush mustache. He looked at us. (277)
- It was a nice-looking little town. There were many fishing boats along the quay and nets were spread on racks. There was a fine November rain falling but it looked cheerful and clean even with the rain. (277)
- Catherine stepped up and we were in Switzerland together. (-) "What a lovely country," I said. (-) "Isn't it grand?" (-) "Let's go and have breakfast!" (-) "Isn't it a grand country? I love the way it feels under my shoes." (...) "Darling, do you realize we're here and out of that bloody place?" (-) "I do. I really do. I've never realized anything before." (277-78)
- "Isn't the rain fine? They never had rain like this in Italy. It's cheerful rain." (-) "And we're here, darling! Do you realize we're here?" (-) (...) We were cockeyed excited. (278)
- "I suppose pretty soon they will arrest us." (-) "Never mind, darling. We'll have breakfast first." (278)
- "I couldn't be any happier," I said. A fat gray cat with a tail that lifted like a plume crossed the floor to our table and curved against my leg to purr each time she rubbed. I reached down and stroked her. Catherine smiled at me very happily. "Here comes the coffee," she said. (279)
- They arrested us after breakfast. (279)
- That fall the snow came very late. (289)
- Sitting up in bed eating breakfast we could see the lake and the mountains across the lake on the French side. There was snow on the tops of the mountains and the lake was a gray steel-blue. (289)
- ...and when the wind blew across the valley you could hear the stream in the rocks. (290)
- The floor of the forest was soft to walk on; the frost did not harden it as it did the road. But we did not mind the hardness of the road because we had nails in the soles and heels of our boots and the heel nails it on the frozen ruts and with nailed boots it was good walking on the road and invigorating. But was it lovely walking in the woods. (290)
- It was lovely in bed with the air so cold and clear and the night outside the window. (291)
- The war seemed as far away as the football games of some one else's college. But I knew from the papers that they were still fighting in the mountains because the snow would not come. (291)
- The day was cold and dark and wintry and the stone of the houses looked cold. (292)
- ...and my voice was a little thick from being excited. (292)
- The train was electrically heated and stuffy but fresh cold air came in though the window. (295)
- Snow did not come until three days before Christmas. We woke one morning and it was snowing. We stayed in bed with the fire roaring in the stove and watched the snow fall. (...) I went to the window and looked out but could not see across the road. It was blowing and snowing wildly. I went back and we lay and talked. (296)
- "I should think sometimes you would want to see other people besides me." (-) "Do you want to see other people?" (-) "No." (-) "Neither do I." (297)
- __"I want us to be all mixed up. I don't want you to go away. I just said that. You go if you want to. But hurry right back. Why, darling, I don't live at all when I'm not with you." (-) "I won't ever go away," I said. "I'm no good when you're not there. I haven't any life at all anymore." (-) "I want you to have a life. I want you to have a fine life. But we'll have it together, won't we?" (300)
- "Go on to sleep," I said. (-) "All right. Let's go to sleep at exactly thee same moment." (-) "All right." (-) But we did not. I was awake for quite a long time thinking about things and watching Catherine sleeping, the moonlight in her face. Then I went to sleep, too. (301)
- The inn was dark and smoky inside and afterward when you went out the cold air came sharply into your lungs and numbed the edge of your nose as you inhaled. (302-03)
- There was frost on the hairs of their muzzles and their breathing made plumes of frost in the air. (303)
- It was a fine country and every time that we went out it was fun. (303)
- "It was fun seeing the fox." (-) "When he sleeps he wraps that tail around him to keep warm." (-) "It must be a lovely feeling." (-) "I always wanted to have a tail like that. Wouldn't it be fun if we had brushes like a fox?" (303)
- We had a fine life. We lived through the months of January and February and the winter was very fine and we were very happy. There had been short thaws when the wind blew warm and the snow softened and the air felt like spring, but always the clear hard cold had come again and the winter had returned. (306)
- Catherine wore heavy overshoes and I wore Mr. Guttingen's rubber-boots and we walked to the station under an umbrella, through the slush and the running water that was washing the ice of the roads bare, to stop at the pub before lunch for a vermouth. Outside we could hear the rain. (306)
- "Oh shut up." (-) "Say it again." (-) "Shut up." (-) "You say it so cautiously," I said. "As though you didn't want to offend any one." (-) "I don't." (309)
- That was the sensible way. Good whiskey was very pleasant. It was one of the pleasant parts of life. (310)
- ...lying on the floor in a patch of sunlight that came through the open window. (311)
- We knew the baby was very close now and it gave us both a feeling as though something were hurrying us and we could not lose any time together. (311)
- It smelled of hospital. (314)
- The day was cloudy but the sun was trying to come through. (318)
- Poor, poor dear Cat. And this was the price you paid for sleeping together. This was the end of the trap. This was what people got for loving each other. (...) Catherine had a good time in the time of pregnancy. It wasn't bad. She was hardly ever sick. She was not awfully uncomfortable until the last. So now they got her in the end. You never got away with anything. Get away hell! It would have been the same if we had been married 50 times. And what if she should die? She won't die. People don't die in childbirth nowadays. That was what all husbands thought. Yes, but what if she should die? She won't die. She's just having a bad time. (...) (320)
- He held something in his two hands that looked like a freshly skinned rabbit and hurried across the corridor with it and in through another door. (324)
- I had no feeling for him. He did not seem to have anything to do with me. I felt no feeling of fatherhood. (-) "Aren't you proud of your son?" the nurse asked. They were washing him and wrapping him in something. I saw the little dark face and dark hand, but I did not see him move or hear him cry. The doctor was doing something to him. He looked upset. (-) "No," I said. "He nearly killed his mother." (325)
- ...and looked out of the window. I could see nothing but the dark and the rain falling across the light of the window. So that was it. The baby was dead. That was why the doctor looked so tired. But why had they acted the way they did in the room with him? They supposed he would come around and start breathing probably. I had no religion but I knew he ought to have been baptized. But what if he never breathed at all. He hadn't. He had never been alive. Except in Catherine. I'd felt him kick there often enough. But I hadn't for a week. Maybe he was choked all the time. Poor little kid. I wished the hell I'd been choked like that. No I didn't. Still there would not be all this dying to go through. Now Catherine would die. That was what you did. You died. You did not know what it was about. You never had time to learn. They threw you in and told you the rules and the first time they caught you off base they killed you. Or they killed you gratuitously like Aymo. Or gave you the syphilis like Rinaldi. But they killed you in the end. You could count on that. Stay around and they would kill you. (327)
- Catherine looked at me and smiled. I bent down over the bed and started to cry. (-) "Poor darling," Catherine said very softly. She looked gray. (-) "You're all right, Cat," I said. "You're going to be all right." (-) "I'm going to die," she said; then waited and said, "I hate it." (-) I took her hand. (330)
- It seems she had one hemorrhage after another. They couldn't stop it. I went into the room and stayed with Catherine until she died. She was unconscious all the time, and it did not take her very long to die. (331)
- But after I had got them (the nurses/doctors) out and shut the door and turned off the light it wasn't any good. It was like saying good-by to a statue. After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain. (332)
oct 19 2015 ∞
jan 5 2024 +
jan 5 2024 +