A Farewell to Arms

by Ernest Hemingway

I explained, winefully, how we did not do the things we wanted to do; we never did such things.

I knew I did not love Catherine Barkley nor had any idea of loving her. This was a game, like bridge, in which you said things instead of playing cards. Like bridge you had to pretend you were playing for money or playing for some stakes. Nobody had mentioned what the stakes were. It was all right with me.

I went out the door and suddenly I felt lonely and empty. I had treated seeing Catherine very lightly, I had gotten somewhat drunk and had nearly forgotten to come but when I could not see her there I was feeling lonely and hollow.

Then I floated, and instead of going on I felt myself slide back.

There is only one difference between taking a girl who has always been good and a woman. With a girl it is painful. That’s

“And you never know if the girl will really like it.”

When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve.”

Perhaps wars weren’t won any more. Maybe they went on forever.

“The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one?”

“He was probably a coward,” she said. “He knew a great deal about cowards but nothing about the brave. The brave dies perhaps two thousand deaths if he’s intelligent. He simply doesn’t mention them.”

“They were beaten to start with. They were beaten when they took them from their farms and put them in the army. That is why the peasant has wisdom, because he is defeated from the start. Put him in power and see how wise he is.”

What’s the use of not being wounded if they scare you to death?”

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.

The questioners had that beautiful detachment and devotion to stern justice of men dealing in death without being in any danger of it.

Often a man wishes to be alone and a girl wishes to be alone too and if they love each other they are jealous of that in each other, but I can truly say we never felt that. We could feel alone when we were together, alone against the others. It has only happened to me like that once. I have been alone while I was with many girls and that is the way that you can be most lonely. But we were never lonely and never afraid when we were together.

I know that the night is not the same as the day: that all things are different, that the things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist, and the night can be a dreadful time for lonely people once their loneliness has started.

If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.

One misses one’s countrymen and especially one’s countrywomen.

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

“I had always expected to become devout. All my family died very devout. But somehow it does not come.” “It’s too early.” “Maybe it is too late. Perhaps I have outlived my religious feeling.” “My own comes only at night.” “Then too you are in love. Do not forget that is a religious feeling.”

That was what you did. You died. You did not know what it was about. You never had time to learn. They threw you in and told you the rules and the first time they caught you off base they killed you. Or they killed you gratuitously like Aymo. Or gave you the syphilis like Rinaldi. But they killed you in the end. You could count on that. Stay around and they would kill you.