A Farewell To Arms

 

War literature has never been my thing but it’s Hemingway so why not? I read a heavily annotated copy that was once a literature student’s. Some of it reminded me of Catch 22. Look at the part where a herniating soldier is portrayed. 

‘“What’s the matter?”

He looked at me, then stood up. 

“I’m going on.”

“What’s the trouble?”

“----- the war.”

“What’s wrong with your leg?”

“It’s not my leg. I got a rupture.”

“Why don’t you ride with the transport?” I asked. “Why don’t you go to the hospital?”

“They won’t let me. The lieutenant said I slipped the truss on purpose.”

“Let me feel it.”

“It’s way out.”

“Which side is it on?”

“Here.”

I felt it. 

“Cough,” I said.

“I’m afraid it will make it bigger. It’s twice as big as it was this morning.”

“Sit down,” I said. “As soon as I get the papers on these wounded I’ll take you along the road and drop you with your medical officers.”

“He’ll say I did it on purpose.”

“They can’t do anything,” I said. “It’s not a wound. You’ve had it before, haven’t you?”

“But I lost the truss.”

“They’ll send you to a hospital.”

“Can’t I stay here, Tenente?”

“No, I haven’t any papers for you.”

The driver came out of the door with the papers for the wounded in the car.

…

“You speak English?” he asked. 

“Sure.”

“How do you like this goddam war?”

“Rotten.”

“I say it’s rotten. Jesus Christ. I say it’s rotten.”

“Were you in the States?”

…

“Listen, lootenant. Do you have to take me to that regiment?”

“Yes.”

“Because the captain doctor knew I had this rupture. I threw away the goddam truss so it would get bad and I wouldn’t have to go to the line again.”

…

“Listen,” I said. “You get out and fall down by the road and get a bump on your head and I’ll pick you up our way back and take you to a hospital. We’ll stop by the road here, Also.” We stopped at the side of the road. I helped him down. 

“I’ll be right here, lieutenant,” he said. 

“So long,” I said. We went on and passed the regiment about a mile ahead, then crossed the river, cloudy with snow-water and running fast through the spiles of the bridge, to ride along the road across the plain and deliver the wounded at the two hospitals. I drove coming back and went fast with the empty car to find the man from Pittsburg. First we passed the regiment, hotter and slower than ever: then the stragglers. Then we saw a horse ambulance stopped by the road. Two men were lifting the hernia man to put him in. They had come back for him. He shook his head at me. His helmet was off and his forehead was bleeding below the hairline. His nose was skinned and there was dust on the body patch and dust in his hair. 

“Look at the bump, lieutenant!” he shouted. “Nothing to do. They come back for me.”’

This kind of coldness and matter of fact tone is what i, and perhaps everyone, love about Hemingway. The part where Frederic shoots two sergeants hits like a truck. It is that abrupt. 

‘... The thing to do now was to dig out in front of the wheels, put in brush so that the chains could grip, and then push until the car was on the road. We were all down on the road around the car. The two sergeants looked at the car and examined the wheels. Then they started off down the road without a word. I went after them. 

“Come on,” I said. “Cut some brush.”

“We have to go,” one said. 

“Get busy,” I said, “and cut brush.”

“We have to go,” one said. The other said nothing. They were in a hurry to start. They would not look at me. 

“I order you to come back to the car and cut brush.” I said. The one sergeant turned. “We have to go on. In a little while you will be cut off. You can’t order us. You’re not our officer.”

“I order you to cut brush,” I said. They turned and started down the road. 

“Halt,” I said. They kept on down the muddy road, the hedge on either side. “I order you to halt,” I called. They went a little faster. I opened up my holster, took the pistol, aimed at the one who had talked the most, and fired. I missed and they both started to run. I shot three times and dropped one. The  other went through the hedge and was out  of sight. I fired at him through the hedge as he ran across the field. 

The pistol clicked empty and I put in another clip. I saw it was too far to shoot at the second sergeant. He was far across the field, running, his head held low. I commenced to reload the empty clip. Bonello came up. 

“Let me go finish him,” he said. I handed him the pistol and he walked down to where the srgeant of engineers lay face down across the road. Bonello leaned over, put the pistol against the man’s head and pulled the trigger. The pistol did not fire. 

“You have to cock it,” I said. He cocked it and fired twice. He took hold of the sergeant’s legs and pulled him to the side of the road so he lay beside the hedge. He came back and handed me the pistol. 

“The son of a bitch,” he said…’

The part that follows this incident where they try to get the jeep out of the mud and fail is thrilling. The desperation sinks in. I was reminded of ‘The Wages of Fear.’ By the time they are caught by the Battle Police, you are at the edge of your seat. You don’t have any idea about what is going to happen to them. At least people like me who are unaware of the workings of the war don’t. So you are taken by surprise by the behaviour of the Battle Police. 

 

‘... No one was talking. They were all trying to get across as soon as they could: thinking oly of that. We were almost across. At the far end of the bridge there were officers and carabinieri standing on both sides flashing lights. I saw them silhouetted against the sky-line. As we came close to them I saw one of the officers point to a man in the column. A carabiniere went in after him and came out holding the man by the arm. He took him away from the road. We came almost opposite them. The officers were scrutinizing every one in the column, sometimes speaking to each other, going forward to flash a light in some one’s face. They took some one else out just before we came opposite. I saw the man. He was a lieutenant-colonel. I saw the stars in the box on his sleeve as they flashed a light on him…’

 

One by one the soldiers are picked and taken aside. We don’t know what is going to happen to them though we do have a bad feeling about it. It is going to be Frederic’s turn any time now.

‘...As we came opposite I saw one or two of them look at me. Then one pointed at me and spoke to a carabiniere. I saw the carabiniere start for me, come through the edge of the column toward me, then felt him take me by the collar.

“What’s the matter with you?” I said and hit him in the face. I saw his face under the hat, upturned mustaches and blood coming down his cheek. Another dove in toward us…’ 

I was so scared at this point. Why did he hit the officer? What if they shoot him?

‘“What’s the matter with you?” I said. He did not answer. He was watching a chance to grab me. I put my arm behind me to loosen my pistol. 

“Don’t you know you can’t touch an officer?”

The other one grabbed me from behind and pulled my arm up so that it twisted in the socket. I turned with him and the other one grabbed me around the neck. I kicked his shins and got my left knee into his groin. 

“Shoot him if he resists,” I heard someone say.

The tension keeps building as other officers are questioned in front of Frederic, and he sees them being sent to be shot. 

‘“Abandoned his troops, ordered to be shot,” he said. 

Two carabinieri took the lieutenant-colonel to the river bank. He walked in the rain, an old man with his hat off, a carabiniere on either side. I did not watch them shoot him but I heard the shots. They were questioning some one else. This officer too was separated from his troops. He was not allowed to make an explanation. He cried when they read the sentence from the pad of paper, and they were questioning another when they shot him. They made a point of being intent on questioning the next man while the man who had been questioned before was being shot. In this way there was obviously nothing they could do about it.’

Imagine witnessing this, knowing you are next in line for questioning. How abruptly the short sentences fall on us. Hit us. ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’ is another work by the same author where he portrays death chasing the protagonist. He senses it where the vultures circle, the hyena slinks past, and in the weight descending on his chest. However, that is another kind of death. It is not inflicted by another human being. This is the reason why it is invisible and abstract in Kilimanjaro but very much concrete in A Farewell. We can hear the shots being fired. It is literal.

Another thrilling episode is Frederic’s and Catherine’s escapade to Switzerland by boat. It starts when the barperson tips Frederic off that he is going to be arrested the next day. A fast paced escapade commences. The barperson gives his boat away. An act of kindness in return for the pipe tobacco he never received. In the boat, we get a glimpse into Catherine’s thoughts regarding the pregnancy. 

“Tell me when you’re tired,” I said. Then a little later, “watch out the oar doesn’t pop you in the tummy.”

“If it did” -  Catherine said between strokes- “life might be much simpler.”

More on war.

‘“We won’t talk about losing. There is enough talk about losing. What has been done this summer cannot have been done in vain.”

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 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 stockyards 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.’

‘... I had on wool stockings but Passini wore puttees. All the drivers wore puttees but Passini had only one leg. I unwound the puttee and while I was doing it I saw there was no need to try and make a tourniquet because he was dead already. I made sure he was dead…’

‘... 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 his papers in my pocket and would write to his family…’

[Emphasis mine.]

The long exchange between the Priest and Frederic is similarly cold and ruthless. I was always on Frederic’s side but in the end, i did end up feeling bad for the priest. I ended up feeling bad for the people in the war. What terrible times humankind went through. 

‘“You love the Abruzzi?”

“Yes, I love it very much.”

“You ought to go there then.”

“I would be too happy. If I could live there and love God and serve Him.”

“And be respected,” I said. 

“Yes and be respected. Why not?”

“No reason not. You should be respected.”

“It does not matter. But there in my country it is understood that a man may love God. It is not a dirty joke.”

“I understand.”

He looked at me and smiled.

“You understand but you do not love God.”

“No.”

“You do not love Him at all?” he asked. 

“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 love. 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 will. 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.”

“I stay too long and talk too much.” He was worried that he really did. 

“No. Don’t go. How about loving women? If I really loved some woman would it be like that?”

“I don’t know about that. I never loved any woman.”

“What about your mother?”

“Yes, I must have loved my mother.”

“Did you always love God?”

“Ever since I was a little boy.”

“Well,” I said. I did not know what to say. “You are a fine boy,” I said. 

“I am a boy,” he said. “But you call me father.”

“That’s politeness.”

He smiled. 

Look at this beautiful comparison that is thrown at us where we least expect it because there has hardly been any such in the whole book. This is after Frederic’s escape from the Battle Police. 

‘... The barman asked me some questions. 

“Don’t talk about the war,” I said. The war 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.’

[Emphasis mine]

Descriptions i liked

‘... I saw a market-place and an open wine shop with a girl sweeping out. They were watering the street and it smelled of the early morning.’

‘They carried me down a long hallway and into a room with drawn blinds. It smelled of new furniture.’

‘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.’

I am sure all Malayalees would have thought of Thoovanathumbikal when they read the part about the sex workers and their matron and learned that she was called the ‘Mother Superior.’ Wonder if Padmarajan had taken it from here. 

Hemingway’s love. Terse as usual but love nevertheless.

‘“Hello,” I said. When I saw her I was in love with her.’

‘I love her very much and she loved me.’

Catherine says,

‘“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.”’

Towards the end of the book, the reader gets tired of all the running. The lovers are constantly on the run and it seems as though there is no end to it. Will they even get to stop to catch their breath? That is precisely when Frederic, as though he read our minds, says, 

‘“I wish we did not always have to live like criminals,” I said.’ 

This is how Hemingway evokes sentimentality in his readers. It is not through moving descriptions or touching memories. It is through succinct sentences as these, which echo the desperation of not just the character but of the reader as well. It is only after they reach Switzerland and find lodging that we breathe a sigh of relief and yet towards the end of their lovely days there, the urgency returns, as seen below. 

‘...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.’ 

It seems these unfortunate lovers have either the war or biology following them all the time.

The exchange between Frederic and Count Greffi is in sharp contrast with the one he had with the priest. Greffi is perhaps the only person who is not affected by the war. Frederic says to him,

‘“You are wise.”

“No, that is the great fallacy; the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.”

“Perhaps that is wisdom.” 

“It is a very unattractive wisdom. What do you value most?”

“Someone I love.”’

Frederic says. 

Here is that ‘someone he loved’ towards the end of the book. 

‘“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.”’