Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Book five, chapters thirty nine and forty of A Farewell
to Arms by Ernest Hemmeway. This LibriVox recording is in
the public domain, chapter thirty nine. By the middle of
January I had a beard, and the winter had settled
into bright cold days and hard cold nights. We could
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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
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to the Ban de Laants. Catherine wore hubbed nailed 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 and the trees at
the bannsde Lance, where the woodcutters stopped to drink, and
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we sat inside warm by the stove and drank hot
red wine with spices and lemon in it. They called
it glue wine, 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
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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 slippy for a while, and the ice orange from
the horses until the wood hauling track turned off. Then
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the road was clean pack 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 ear rings. He's
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a shammy 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 shammy hunters.
Are these shammy near here? Yes? Beyond the dunt Dejaman?
It was fun seeing the fox When he sleeps, he
wraps his tail around him to keep warm. Must be
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a lovely feeling. I always wanted to have a tail
like that. Wouldn't it be fun if we had brushed
us 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 anyone. You don't want to see people, do you, darling? No?
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Should we sit here just a moment? I'm a little
bit tired. We sat close together on the logs I
had 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
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and get a 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 quarreled so much it wore itself out.
I think i'd like them. I'd probably like them very much.
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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
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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 a cut, or I'll go
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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. Well, you're so sweet. Maybe i'd
look lovely, darling, 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
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you good, I said, that's what I want too, Chapter forty.
We had a fine life. We lived through the months
of January and February, and the winter was very fine,
and 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
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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,
was raining high up in the mountain. Katherine wore heavy overshoes,
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and I wore mister Guttengen'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
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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 Lussan. 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
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bigger town, and Lussan 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 to. Let's see
how the weather turns out. It rained for three days.
The snow is all gone now. On the mountain side
below the station, the road was a torrent of muddy
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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,
mister 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 has come. We have
to be near the hospital anyway, on account of Madame,
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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. All right about coming,
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I said. We packed and left on the train that
went down. After lunch, mister and missus 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 and the rain, waving good bye. They were
very sweet. Catherine said they were fine to us. We
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took the train to Lussant from Montreu. Looking out the
window toward where we had lived, you could not see
the mountains for the clouds. The train stopped in Vevais,
then went on, passing the lake on one side and
on the other the wet brown fields, in the bare
woods and the wet houses. We came at Lassan and
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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
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after the gutt engines. The windows of the room looked
out on a wet garden with a wall topped by
an iron fence. Crossed 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
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ordered a whisky and soda and lay on the bed
and read the papers I had bought at the station.
It was March nineteen eighteen and the German offensive had
started in France. I drank the whisky and soda and
read while Catherine unpacked and moved around the room. You
know what I have to get, Darling, she said, what
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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 tomorrow. 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 a pillow and spilled the whiskey
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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
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though you didn't want to offend anyone. 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,
don I'm like a big flower 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
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the time. But I will be thin again, darling. You're
thin now. You've been drinking just whisky and soda. There's
another one coming, she said, And then should we order
dinner up here? And 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
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said it won't hurt me. Maybe we can get some
of our old white capri. I know we can't, I said,
they'll have Italian ones at a hotel this size. The
waiter knocked at the door. He brought the whiskey and
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
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brought up here and two bottles of dry white capri
and 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
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into the whisky. I would have to tell them not
to put ice in the whisky. Let them bring the
ice separately. That way we could tell how much whisky
there was, and it would not be suddenly too thin
from the soda. I would get a bottle of whisky
and had them bring ice and soda. That was the
sensible way. Good whisky was very pleasant it was one
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of the pleasant parts of life. What are you thinking, darling,
about whisky? What about whisky? About how nice it is?
Catherine made a face, all right, she said. We stayed
at the hotel three weeks. It was not bad. The
dining room was usually empty, and very often we ate
in our room. At night. We walked in the town
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and took the cogwheel railway down to Auchi and walked
beside the lane. 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 a winter
came again. Catherine bought the things she needed for the
baby up in the town. I went to a gymnasium
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in the arcade to box for exercise. I usually went
up there in the morning while Catherine's day late in bed.
On the days of false spring, it was very nice
after boxing and taking a shower to walk along the street,
smelling the spring in the air, and stop at a
cafe to sit watch the people and read the paper
and drink a vermouth. Then go down to the hotel
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and have lunch with Catherine. The professor at the boxing Gymnasium.
Wore mustachus and was very precise and jerky and went
all to pieces if you started after him. But it
was pleasant at the gym. There was good air and light,
and I worked quite hard, skipping rope, shadow boxing, doing
abdominal exercises on the floor in a patch of sunlight
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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 Katherine and
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I went for rides out in the country in a carriage.
It was nice to ride when the days were pleasant.
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
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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. End of
chapter forty