In September the first cool nights came, then the days were cool and the leaves on the trees in the park began to turn color and we knew the summer was gone. The fighting at the front went very badly and they could not take San Gabriele. The fighting on the Bainsizza plateau was over and by the middle of the month the fighting for San Gabriele was about over too. They could not take it.
Ettore was gone back to the front. The horses were gone to Rome and there was no more racing. Crowell had gone to Rome too, to be sent back to America. There were riots twice in the town against the war and bad rioting in Turin. A British major at the club told me the Italians had lost one hundred and fifty thousand men on the Bainsizza plateau and on San Gabriele.
① 法兰德斯地区包括比利时西部和法国北部,这里讲的总攻击是指1916 年英法联军与德国军队沿索谟河的争夺战,联军运用了新武器坦克,还是没有多大成就。
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He said they had lost forty thousand on the Carso besides. We had a drink and he talked. He said the fighting was over for the year down here and that the Italians had bitten off more than they could chew. He said the offensive in Flanders was going to the bad. If they killed men as they did this fall the Allies would be cooked in another year.
He said we were all cooked but we were all right as long as we did not know it. We were all cooked. The thing was not to recognize it. The last country to realize they were cooked would win the war. We had another drink. Was I on somebody’s staff? No. He was. It was all balls. We were alone in the club sitting back in one of the big leather sofas.
His boots were smoothly polished dull leather. They were beautiful boots. He said it was all balls. They thought only in divisions and man-power. They all squabbled about divisions and only killed them when they got them. They were all cooked.
The Germans won the victories. By God they were soldiers. The old Hun was a soldier. But they were cooked too. We were all cooked. I asked about Russia. He said they were cooked already. I’d soon see they were cooked. Then the Austrians were cooked too.
If they got some Hun divisions they could do it. Did he think they would attack this fall? Of course they would. The Italians were cooked. Everybody knew they were cooked. The old Hun would come down through the Trentino and cut the railway at Vicenza and then where would the Italians be?
They tried that in ’sixteen, I said. Not with Germans. Yes, I said. But they probably wouldn’t do that, he said. It was too simple. They’d try something complicated and get royally cooked. I had to go, I said. I had to get back to the hospital. "Good-by," he said. Then cheerily, "Every sort of luck!" There was a great contrast between his world pessimism and personal cheeriness.
I stopped at a barber shop and was shaved and went home to the hospital. My leg was as well as it would get for a long time. I had been up for examination three days before. There were still some treatments to take before my course at the Ospedale.Maggiore was finished and I walked along the side street practising not limping.
An old man was cutting silhouettes under an arcade. I stopped to watch him. Two girls were posing and he cut their silhouettes together, snipping very fast and looking at them, his head on one side. The girls were giggling. He showed me the silhouettes before he pasted them on white paper and handed them to the girls.
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“她们长得很美,”他说。“你来不来,中尉?”
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"They’re beautiful," he said. "How about you, Tenente?"
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姑娘们边看着她们的剪影边笑着走了。她们都长得很好看。有一个是医院对面那家酒店里的女店员。
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The girls went away looking at their silhouettes and laughing. They were nice-looking girls. One of them worked in the wine shop across from the hospital.
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“好的,”我说。
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"All right," I said.
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“脱掉帽子。”
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"Take your cap off."
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“不。还是戴着吧。”
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"No. With it on."
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“那就不十分美观了,”老人说。“不过,”他高兴起来,“这样更有军人气派。”
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"It will not be so beautiful," the old man said. "But," he brightened, "it will be more military."
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他在黑纸上剪来剪去,随后分开这两层厚纸,把侧面像贴在一张卡纸上递给我。
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He snipped away at the black paper, then separated the two thicknesses and pasted the profiles on a card and handed them to me.
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“多少钱?”
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"How much?"
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“用不着。”他摇摇手。“我是为你服务的。”
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"That’s all right." He waved his hand. "I just made them for you."
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“请。”我掏出几个铜币来。“就当做茶钱吧。”
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"Please." I brought out some coppers. "For pleasure."
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“不。我剪它本是一种娱乐。把钱留下给你的女朋友吧。”
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"No. I did them for a pleasure. Give them to your girl."
I went on to the hospital. There were some letters, an official one, and some others. I was to have three weeks’ convalescent leave and then return to the front. I read it over carefully. Well, that was that.
The convalescent leave started October fourth when my course was finished. Three weeks was twenty-one days. That made October twenty-fifth. I told them I would not be in and went to the restaurant a little way up the street from the hospital for supper and read my letters and the Corriere Della Sera at the table.
There was a letter from my grandfather, containing family news, patriotic encouragement, a draft for two hundred dollars, and a few clippings; a dull letter from the priest at our mess, a letter from a man I knew who was flying with the French and had gotten in with a wild gang and was telling about it, and a note from Rinaldi asking me how long I was going to skulk in Milano and what was all the news?
He wanted me to bring him phonograph records and enclosed a list. I drank a small bottle of chianti with the meal, had a coffee afterward with a glass of cognac, finished the paper, put my letters in my pocket, left the paper on the table with the tip and went out.
① 美国的棒球比赛是一种群众性的娱乐活动。全国各大城市都有职业球队参加“美国联赛”或“全国联赛”两大全国性的联赛。杰出运动员受人崇拜欢迎,犹如明星。
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In my room at the hospital I undressed, put on pajamas and a dressing-gown, pulled down the curtains on the door that opened onto the balcony and sitting up in bed read Boston papers from a pile Mrs. Meyers had left for her boys at the hospital. The Chicago White Sox were winning the American League pennant and the New York Giants were leading the National League.
BabeRuth was a pitcher then playing for Boston. The papers were dull, the news was local and stale, and the war news was all old. The American news was all training camps. I was glad I wasn’t in a training camp. The baseball news was all I could read and I did not have the slightest interest in it.
A number of papers together made it impossible to read with interest. It was not very timely but I read at it for a while. I wondered if America really got into the war, if they would close down the major leagues. They probably wouldn’t. There was still racing in Milan and the war could not be much worse.
They had stopped racing in France. That was where our horse Japalac came from. Catherine was not due on duty until nine o’clock. I heard her passing along the floor when she first came on duty and once saw her pass in the hall. She went to several other rooms and finally came into mine.
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“我来晚了,亲爱的,”她说。“方才有好些事得做。你好啊?”
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"I’m late, darling," she said. "There was a lot to do. How are you?"
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我把我收到的公函和休假的消息告诉了她。
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I told her about my papers and the leave.
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“好极啦,”她说。“你打算上哪儿去呢?”
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"That’s lovely," she said. "Where do you want to go?"
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“都不去。我要呆在这儿。”
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"Nowhere. I want to stay here."
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“那太傻了,你拣个地方,我跟着来。”
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"That’s silly. You pick a place to go and I’ll come too."
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“你怎么能够跟着来?”
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"How will you work it?"
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“还不知道。不过我会来的。”
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"I don’t know. But I will."
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“你很行。”
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"You’re pretty wonderful."
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“哪里。只要你不计较得失的话,人生还有什么不能想法子克服的。”
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"No I’m not. But life isn’t hard to manage when you’ve nothing to lose."
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“你这话什么意思?”
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Please sign in to unlock the rest
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“没什么。我只在想,以前有些困难,当时看来很大很大,但回想起来,只是一些小阻碍罢了。”
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“我倒以为是很难想法子的。”
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“没有什么大困难,亲爱的。顶多是我一走了之。但是也不必走到这一地步。”
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"No it won’t, darling. If necessary I’ll simply leave. But it won’t come to that."