Farewell to Arms
...ets and two bawdy houses, one for troops and one for officers, and with the end of the summer, the cool night, the fighting in the mountains beyond the town, the shell-marked iron of the railway bridge, the smashed tunnel by the river where the fighting had been, the trees around the square and the long avenue that led to the square. The forest of oak trees on the mountain beyond the town was gone. The forest had been green in the summer when we had come into the town but now there were the stumps and the broken trunks and the ground torn up, and one day at the end of the fall when I was out where the oak forest had been I saw a cloud coming over the mountains. It came very fast and the sun went a dull yellow and then everything was gray and the sky was covered and cloud came on down the mountain and suddenly we were in it and it was snow. The snow slanted across the wind, the bare ground was covered, the stumps of the trees projected, there was snow on the guns and there were paths in the snow going back to the latrines behind trenches. Later, below in the town, I watched the snow falling, looking out of the window of the bawdy house, the house for officers, where I sat with a friends and two glasses drinking a bottle of Asti, and looking out at the snow falling slowly and heavily, we knew it was all over for that year .Up the river the mountains had not been taken. That was all left for next year .My friends saw the priest from our mess pounded on the window to attract his attention .The priest looked up, he saw us and smiled. My friends motioned for him to come in .The priest shook his head and went on. That night in the mess after spaghetti course, which every one ate very quickly and seriously, 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, helping ourselves to wine from the grass-covered gallon flask. The priest was young and blushed easily and wore a uniform like the rest of us but with a cross in dark red velvet above the left breast pocket of his gray tunic. The captain spoke pidgin Italian for my doubtful benefit, in order that I might understand perfectly that nothing should be lost. When I came back to the front we still lived in that town. There were many more guns in the country around and the spring had come. The fields were green and there small green shoots on the vines, the trees along the road had small leaves and a breeze came from the sea .I saw the town with the hill and old castle above it in a cup in the hills with the mountains beyond, brown mountains with a little green on their slopes .In the town there were more guns, there were some new hospitals, you met British men and sometimes women, on the street, and a few more houses had been hit by shell fire. The door was open, there was a soldier sitting on a bench outside in the sun, an ambulance was waiting for by the side door and inside the door, as I went in the door of the big room and saw major sitting at his desk, the window open and the sunlight coming into the room. The room I shared with the lieutenant Rinaldi looked out on the on the courtyard. The window was open; my bed was made up with blankets and my things hung on the wall, the gas mask in an oblong tin can, and the steel helmet on the same peg. At the foot of the bed was my flat trunk, and my winter boots, the leather shiny with oil, were on the trunk. The battery in the next garden woke me in the morning and I saw the sun coming through the window and got out of the bed. I went to the window and looked out. The gravel paths were moist and the grass was wet with dew. The battery fired twice and the air came each time like a blow and shook the window and made the front of my pajamas flap .I could not see the guns but they were evidently firing directly over us. It was a nuisance to have them there but it was a comfort that they were no bigger. The whole thing seemed to run better while I was away. The offensive was going to start again I heard. The division for which we worked was to attack at a place up the river and major told me that I would see about the posts for during the attack. That day I visited the posts in the mountains and was backing town late in the afternoon. The next afternoon I went to call on Miss Barkley again. She was not in the garden and I went to the side door of the villa where the ambulance drove up. Inside I saw the head nurse, who said Miss Barkley was on duty-there’s a war, you know. The day had been hot. I had been up the river to the bridgehead at Plava. It was there that offensive was to begin. It had been impossible to advance on the far side the year before because there was only one road leading down from the pass to the pontoon bridge and it was under machine-gun and shell ire for nearly a mile. It was not wide enough either to carryall the transport for an offensive and the Austrians could make a shambles out of it. But the Italians had crossed and spread out a little way on the far side to hold about a mile and half on the Austrian side of the river .The Austrian trenches were above on the hillside only a few yards from the Italian l...