A Farewell To Arms: Chapters 1–10

There were mists over the river and clouds on the mountain and the trucks splashed mud on the road and the troops were muddy and wet in their capes; their rifles were wet and under their capes the two leather cartridge-boxes on the front of the belts, gray leather boxes heavy with the packs of clips of thin, long 6.5 mm. cartridges, bulged forward under the capes so that the men, passing on the road, marched as though they were six months gone with child.

The mountain that was beyond the valley and the hillside where the chestnut forest grew was captured and there were victories beyond the plain on the plateau to the south and we crossed the river in August and lived in a house in Gorizia that had a fountain and many thick shady trees in a walled garden and a wisteria vine purple on the side of the house.

The river ran behind us and the town had been captured very handsomely but the mountains beyond it could not be taken and I was very glad the Austrians seemed to want to come back to the town some time, if the war should end, because they did not bombard it to destroy it but only a little in a military way.

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.

“It is a filthy and vile book,” said the priest.

“Don’t you wish you could bellow like him?”

“Since you are gone we have nothing but frostbites, chilblains, jaundice, gonorrhea, self-inflicted wounds, pneumonia and hard and soft chancres.

They were top-heavy, blunt-nosed ambulances, painted gray and built like moving-vans.

The attack would cross the river up above the narrow gorge and spread up the hillside.

She wore what seemed to me to be a nurse’s uniform, was blonde and had a tawny skin and gray eyes.

“It was a ghastly show.”

It was not wide enough either to carry all the transport for an offensive and the Austrians could make a shambles out of it.

We’re not cloistered.”

I sat now in the chair and an orderly of some sort looked at me disapprovingly from behind a desk while I looked at the marble floor, the pillars with the marble busts, and the frescoes on the wall and waited for Miss Barkley.

It was very edifying, baby.

A regiment went by in the road and I watched them pass.

Rinaldi said that the French had mutinied and troops marched on Paris.

Maybe she would pretend that I was her boy that was killed and we would go in the front door and the porter would take off his cap and I would stop at the concierge’s desk and ask for the key and she would stand by the elevator...

They talked too much at the mess and drank wine because tonight we were not all brothers unless I drank a little and talked with the priest about Archbishop Ireland who was, it seemed, a noble man and with whose injustice, the injustices he had received and in which I participated as an American, and of which I had never heard, I feigned acquaintance.

Driving in convoy is not unpleasant if you are the first car and I settled back in the seat and watched the country.

The major spoke grudgingly to the orderly who ducked back into the hole again and came out with a quarter of a white cheese.

I took out my knife, opened it, wiped off the blade and pared off the dirty outside surface of the cheese.

I tried to get closer to Passini to try to put a tourniquet on the legs but I could not move.

He said there was so much dirt blown into the wound that there had not been much hemorrhage.

The Englishman broke into voluble and perfect Italian.

“I’ll look up their adjutant to do your papers and it will all go much faster.”

Your blood coagulates beautifully.”

He bandaged, his hands moving very fast and the bandage coming taut and sure.

Look at your valorous conduct in asking to go always to the first line.

I will send the liaison officer.