A Farewell to Arms (Unabridged)

marched as though they were six months gone with child

when they started to peel and flake off.

dge of the slope

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. Gino was a patriot, so he said things that separated us sometimes, but he was also a fine boy and I understood his being a patriot. He was born one. He left with Peduzzi in the car to go back to Gorizia.

“What will happen?” Istroked the blanket with my hand.

t up from the priest-baiting

Don’t strain yourself.”

“You’ll get other things.”

“No. We never get anything. We are born with all we have and we never learn. We never get anything new. We all start complete

You puncture me when I become a great Italian thinker. But I know many things I can’t say. I know more than you.”

“I am the snake. I am the snake of reason.”

“You’re getting it mixed. The apple was reason.”