A Farewell to Arms (22 page)

“Do you want to see other people?”

“No.”

“Neither do I.”

“I know. But you're different. I'm having a child and that makes me contented not to do anything. I know I'm awfully stupid now and I talk too much and I think you ought to get away so you won't be tired of me.”

“Do you want me to go away?”

“No. I want you to stay.”

“That's what I'm going to do.”

“Come over here,” she said. “I want to feel the bump on your head. It's a big bump.” She ran her finger over it. “Darling, would you like to grow a beard?”

“Would you like me to?”

“It might be fun. I'd like to see you with a beard.”

“All right. I'll grow one. I'll start now this minute. It's a good idea. It will give me something to do.”

“Are you worried because you haven't anything to do?”

“No. I like it. I have a fine life. Don't you?”

“I have a lovely life. But I was afraid because I'm big now that maybe I was a bore to you.”

“Oh, Cat. You don't know how crazy I am about you.”

“This way?”

“Just the way you are. I have a fine time. Don't we have a good life?”

“I do, but I thought maybe you were restless.”

“No. Sometimes I wonder about the front and about people I know but I don't worry. I don't think about anything much.”

“Who do you wonder about?”

“About Rinaldi and the priest and lots of people I know. But I don't think about them much. I don't want to think about the war. I'm through with it.”

“What are you thinking about now?”

“Nothing.”

“Yes you were. Tell me.”

“I was wondering whether Rinaldi had the syphilis.”

“Was that all?”

“Yes.”

“Has he the syphilis?”

“I don't know.”

“I'm glad you haven't. Did you ever have anything like that?”

“I had gonorrhea.”

“I don't want to hear about it. Was it very painful, darling?”

“Very.”

“I wish I'd had it.”

“No you don't.”

“I do. I wish I'd had it to be like you. I wish I'd stayed with all your girls so I could make fun of them to you.”

“That's a pretty picture.”

“It's not a pretty picture you having gonorrhea.”

“I know it. Look at it snow now.”

“I'd rather look at you. Darling, why don't you let your hair grow?”

“How grow?”

“Just grow a little longer.”

“It's long enough now.”

“No, let it grow a little longer and I could cut mine and we'd be just alike only one of us blonde and one of us dark.”

“I wouldn't let you cut yours.”

“It would be fun. I'm tired of it. It's an awful nuisance in the bed at night.”

“I like it.”

“Wouldn't you like it short?”

“I might. I like it the way it is.”

“It might be nice short. Then we'd both be alike. Oh, darling, I want you so much I want to be you too.”

“You are. We're the same one.”

“I know it. At night we are.”

“The nights are grand.”

“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 any more.”

“I want you to have a life. I want you to have a fine life. But we'll have it together, won't we?”

“And now do you want me to stop growing my beard or let it go on?”

“Go on. Grow it. It will be exciting. Maybe it will be done for New Year's.”

“Now do you want to play chess?”

“I'd rather play with you.”

“No. Let's play chess.”

“And afterward we'll play?”

“Yes.”

“All right.”

I got out the chess-board and arranged the pieces. It was still snowing hard outside.

One time in the night I woke up and knew that Catherine was awake too. The moon was shining in the window and made shadows on the bed from the bars on the window-panes.

“Are you awake, sweetheart?”

“Yes. Can't you sleep?”

“I just woke up thinking about how I was nearly crazy when I first met you. Do you remember?”

“You were just a little crazy.”

“I'm never that way any more. I'm grand now. You say grand so sweetly. Say grand.”

“Grand.”

“Oh, you're sweet. And I'm not crazy now. I'm just very, very, very happy.”

“Go on to sleep,” I said.

“All right. Let's go to sleep at exactly the 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 on her face. Then I went to sleep, too.

By the middle of January I had a beard and the winter had settled into bright cold days and hard cold nights. We could walk on the roads again. The snow was packed hard and smooth by the hay-sleds and wood-sledges and the logs that were hauled down the mountain. The snow lay over all the country, down almost to Montreux. The mountains on the other side of the lake were all white and the plain of the Rhone Valley was covered. We took long walks on the other side of the mountain to the Bains de l'Alliaz. Catherine wore hobnailed boots and a cape and carried a stick with a sharp steel point. She did not look big with the cape and we would not walk too fast but stopped and sat on logs by the roadside to rest when she was tired.

There was an inn in the trees at the Bains de l'Alliaz where the woodcutters stopped to drink, and we sat inside warmed by the stove and drank hot red wine with spices and lemon in it. They called it gluhwein and it was a good thing to warm you and to celebrate with. 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. We looked back at the inn with light coming from the windows and the woodcutters' horses stamping and jerking their heads outside to keep warm. There was frost on the hairs of their muzzles and their breathing made plumes of frost in the air. Going up the road toward home the road was smooth and slippery for a while and the ice orange from the horses until the wood-hauling track turned off. Then the road was clean-packed snow and led through the woods, and twice coming home in the evening, we saw foxes.

It was a fine country and every time that we went out it was fun.

“You have a splendid beard now,” Catherine said. “It looks just like the woodcutters'. Did you see the man with the tiny gold earrings?”

“He's a chamois hunter,” I said. “They wear them because they say it makes them hear better.”

“Really? I don't believe it. I think they wear them to show they are chamois hunters. Are there chamois near here?”

“Yes, beyond the Dent de Jaman.”

“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?”

“It might be very difficult dressing.”

“We'd have clothes made, or live in a country where it wouldn't make any difference.”

“We live in a country where nothing makes any difference. Isn't it grand how we never see any one? You don't want to see people do you, darling?”

“No.”

“Should we sit here just a minute? I'm a little bit tired.”

We sat close together on the logs. Ahead the road went down through the forest.

“She won't come between us, will she? The little brat.”

“No. We won't let her.”

“How are we for money?”

“We have plenty. They honored the last sight draft.”

“Won't your family try and get hold of you now they know you're in Switzerland?”

“Probably. I'll write them something.”

“Haven't you written them?”

“No. Only the sight draft.”

“Thank God I'm not your family.”

“I'll send them a cable.”

“Don't you care anything about them?”

“I did, but we quarrelled so much it wore itself out.”

“I think I'd like them. I'd probably like them very much.”

“Let's not talk about them or I'll start to worry about them.” After a while I said, “Let's go on if you're rested.”

“I'm rested.”

We went on down the road. It was dark now and the snow squeaked under our boots. The night was dry and cold and very clear.

“I love your beard,” Catherine said. “It's a great success. It looks so stiff and fierce and it's very soft and a great pleasure.”

“Do you like it better than without?”

“I think so. You know, darling, I'm not going to cut my hair now until after young Catherine's born. I look too big and matronly now. But after she's born and I'm thin again I'm going to cut it and then I'll be a fine new and different girl for you. We'll go together and get it cut, or I'll go alone and come and surprise you.”

I did not say anything.

“You won't say I can't, will you?”

“No. I think it would be exciting.”

“Oh, you're so sweet. And maybe I'd look lovely, darling, and be so thin and exciting to you and you'll fall in love with me all over again.”

“Hell,” I said, “I love you enough now. What do you want to do? Ruin me?”

“Yes. I want to ruin you.”

“Good,” I said, “that's what I want too.”

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. In March came the first break in the winter. In the night it started raining. It rained on all morning and turned the snow to slush and made the mountain-side dismal. There were clouds over the lake and over the valley. It was raining high up the mountain. 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.

“Do you think we ought to move into town?”

“What do you think?” Catherine asked.

“If the winter is over and the rain keeps up it won't be fun up here. How long is it before young Catherine?”

“About a month. Perhaps a little more.”

“We might go down and stay in Montreux.”

“Why don't we go to Lausanne? That's where the hospital is.”

“All right. But I thought maybe that was too big a town.”

“We can be as much alone in a bigger town and Lausanne might be nice.”

“When should we go?”

“I don't care. Whenever you want, darling. I don't want to leave here if you don't want.”

“Let's see how the weather turns out.”

It rained for three days. The snow was all gone now on the mountain-side below the station. The road was a torrent of muddy snow-water. It was too wet and slushy to go out. On the morning of the third day of rain we decided to go down into town.

“That is all right, Mr. Henry,” Guttingen said. “You do not have to give me any notice. I did not think you would want to stay now the bad weather is come.”

“We have to be near the hospital anyway on account of Madame,” I said.

“I understand,” he said. “Will you come back some time and stay, with the little one?”

“Yes, if you would have room.”

“In the spring when it is nice you could come and enjoy it. We could put the little one and the nurse in the big room that is closed now and you and Madame could have your same room looking out over the lake.”

“I'll write about coming,” I said. We packed and left on the train that went down after lunch. Mr. and Mrs. Guttingen came down to the station with us and he hauled our baggage down on a sled through the slush. They stood beside the station in the rain waving good-by.

“They were very sweet,” Catherine said.

“They were fine to us.”

We took the train to Lausanne from Montreux. Looking out the window toward where we had lived you could not see the mountains for the clouds. The train stopped in Vevey, then went on, passing the lake on one side and on the other the wet brown fields and the bare woods and the wet houses. We came into Lausanne and went into a medium-sized hotel to stay. It was still raining as we drove through the streets and into the carriage entrance of the hotel. The concierge with brass keys on his lapels, the elevator, the carpets on the floors, and the white washbowls with shining fixtures, the brass bed and the big comfortable bedroom all seemed very great luxury after the Guttingens. The windows of the room looked out on a wet garden with a wall topped by an iron fence. Across the street, which sloped steeply, was another hotel with a similar wall and garden. I looked out at the rain falling in the fountain of the garden.

Catherine turned on all the lights and commenced unpacking. I ordered a whiskey and soda and lay on the bed and read the papers I had bought at the station. It was March, 1918, and the German offensive had started in France. I drank the whiskey and soda and read while Catherine unpacked and moved around the room.

“You know what I have to get, darling,” she said.

“What?”

“Baby clothes. There aren't many people reach my time without baby things.”

“You can buy them.”

“I know. That's what I'll do to-morrow. I'll find out what is necessary.”

“You ought to know. You were a nurse.”

“But so few of the soldiers had babies in the hospitals.”

“I did.”

She hit me with the pillow and spilled the whiskey and soda.

“I'll order you another,” she said. “I'm sorry I spilled it.”

“There wasn't much left. Come on over to the bed.”

“No. I have to try and make this room look like something.”

“Like what?”

“Like our home.”

“Hang out the Allied flags.”

“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.”

“Then come over to the bed.”

“All right.” She came and sat on the bed. “I know I'm no fun for you, darling. I'm like a big flour-barrel.”

“No you're not. You're beautiful and you're sweet.”

“I'm just something very ungainly that you've married.”

“No you're not. You're more beautiful all the time.”

“But I will be thin again, darling.”

“You're thin now.”

“You've been drinking.”

“Just whiskey and soda.”

“There's another one coming,” she said. “And then should we order dinner up here?”

“That will be good.”

“Then we won't go out, will we? We'll just stay in to-night.”

“And play,” I said.

“I'll drink some wine,” Catherine said. “It won't hurt me. Maybe we can get some of our old white capri.”

“I know we can,” I said. “They'll have Italian wines at a hotel this size.”

The waiter knocked at the door. He brought the whiskey in a glass with ice and beside the glass on a tray a small bottle of soda.

“Thank you,” I said. “Put it down there. Will you please have dinner for two brought up here and two bottles of dry white capri in ice.”

“Do you wish to commence your dinner with soup?”

“Do you want soup, Cat?”

“Please.”

“Bring soup for one.”

“Thank you, sir.” He went out and shut the door. I went back to the papers and the war in the papers and poured the soda slowly over the ice into the whiskey. I would have to tell them not to put ice in the whiskey. Let them bring the ice separately. That way you could tell how much whiskey there was and it would not suddenly be too thin from the soda. I would get a bottle of whiskey and have them bring ice and soda. That was the sensible way. Good whiskey was very pleasant. It was one of the pleasant parts of life.

“What are you thinking, darling?”

“About whiskey.”

“What about whiskey?”

“About how nice it is.”

Catherine made a face. “All right,” she said.

We stayed at that hotel three weeks. It was not bad; the diningroom was usually empty and very often we ate in our room at night. We walked in the town and took the cogwheel railway down to Ouchy and walked beside the lake. The weather became quite warm and it was like spring. We wished we were back in the mountains but the spring weather lasted only a few days and then the cold rawness of the breaking-up of winter came again.

Catherine bought the things she needed for the baby, up in the town. I went to a gymnasium in the arcade to box for exercise. I usually went up there in the morning while Catherine stayed late in bed. On the days of false spring it was very nice, after boxing and taking a shower, to walk along the streets smelling the spring in the air and stop at a café to sit and watch the people and read the paper and drink a vermouth; then go down to the hotel and have lunch with Catherine. The professor at the boxing gymnasium wore mustaches and was very precise and jerky and went all to pieces if you started after him. But it was pleasant in the gym. There was good air and light and I worked quite hard, skipping rope, shadowboxing, doing abdominal exercises lying on the floor in a patch of sunlight that came through the open window, and occasionally scaring the professor when we boxed. I could not shadow-box in front of the narrow long mirror at first because it looked so strange to see a man with a beard boxing. But finally I just thought it was funny. I wanted to take off the beard as soon as I started boxing but Catherine did not want me to.

Sometimes Catherine and I went for rides out in the country in a carriage. It was nice to ride when the days were pleasant and we found two good places where we could ride out to eat. Catherine could not walk very far now and I loved to ride out along the country roads with her. When there was a good day we had a splendid time and we never had a bad time. 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.