A farewell to arms

“That wasn’t a very big one. I had a very big one a while ago. The doctor made me go clear out, didn’t you, doctor?” Her voice was strange. It rose on the word doctor.

The doctor smiled.

“I want it again,” Catherine said. She held the rubber tight to her face and breathed fast. I heard her moaning a little. Then she pulled the mask away and smiled.

“That was a big one,” she said. “That was a very big one. Don’t you worry, darling. You go away. Go have another breakfast.”

“I’ll stay,” I said.

We had gone to the hospital about three o’clock in the morning. At noon Catherine was still in the delivery room. The pains had slackened again. She looked very tired and worn now but she was still cheerful.

“I’m not any good, darling,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I thought I would do it very easily. Now—there’s one—” she reached out her hand for the mask and held it over her face. The doctor moved the dial and watched her. In a little while it was over.

“It wasn’t much,” Catherine said. She smiled. “I’m a fool about the gas. It’s wonderful.”

“We’ll get some for the home,” I said.

“There one comes,” Catherine said quickly. The doctor turned the dial and looked at his watch.

“What is the interval now?” I asked.

“About a minute.”

“Don’t you want lunch?”

“I will have something pretty soon,” he said.

“You must have something to eat, doctor,” Catherine said. “I’m so sorry I go on so long. Couldn’t my husband give me the gas?”

“If you wish,” the doctor said. “You turn it to the numeral two.”

“I see,” I said. There was a marker on a dial that turned with a handle.

“I want it now,” Catherine said. She held the mask tight to her face. I turned the dial to number two and when Catherine put down the mask I turned it off. It was very good of the doctor to let me do something.

“Did you do it, darling?” Catherine asked. She stroked my wrist.

“Sure.”

“You’re so lovely.” She was a little drunk from the gas.

“I will eat from a tray in the next room,” the doctor said. “You can call me any moment.” While the time passed I watched him eat, then, after a while, I saw that he was lying down and smoking a cigarette. Catherine was getting very tired.

“Do you think I’ll ever have this baby?” she asked.

“Yes, of course you will.”

“I try as hard as I can. I push down but it goes away. There it comes. Give it to me.”

At two o’clock I went out and had lunch. There were a few men in the café sitting with coffee and glasses of kirsch or marc on the tables. I sat down at a table. “Can I eat?” I asked the waiter.

“It is past time for lunch.”

“Isn’t there anything for all hours?”

“You can have choucroute.”

“Give me choucroute and beer.”

“A demi or a bock?”

“A light demi.”

The waiter brought a dish of sauerkraut with a slice of ham over the top and a sausage buried in the hot wine-soaked cabbage. I ate it and drank the beer. I was very hungry. I watched the people at the tables in the café. At one table they were playing cards. Two men at the table next me were talking and smoking. The café was full of smoke. The zinc bar, where I had breakfasted, had three people behind it now; the old man, a plump woman in a black dress who sat behind a counter and kept track of everything served to the tables, and a boy in an apron. I wondered how many children the woman had and what it had been like.

When I was through with the choucroute I went back to the hospital. The street was all clean now. There were no refuse cans out. The day was cloudy but the sun was trying to come through.

I rode upstairs in the elevator, stepped out and went down the hail to Catherine’s room, where I had left my white gown. I put it on and pi

“Here is your husband,” the doctor said.

“Oh, darling, I have the most wonderful doctor,” Catherine said in a very strange voice. “He’s been telling me the most wonderful story and when the pain came too badly he put me all the way out. He’s wonderful. You’re wonderful, doctor.”

“You’re drunk,” I said.

“I know it,” Catherine said. “But you shouldn’t say it.” Then “Give it to me. Give it to me.” She clutched hold of the mask and breathed short and deep, pantingly, making the respirator click. Then she gave a long sigh and the doctor reached with his left hand and lifted away the mask.

“That was a very big one,” Catherine said. Her voice was very strange. “I’m not going to die now, darling. I’m past where I was going to die. Aren’t you glad?”

“Don’t you get in that place again.”

“I won’t. I’m not afraid of it though. I won’t die, darling.”

“You will not do any such foolishness,” the doctor said. “You would not die and leave your husband.”

“Oh, no. I won’t die. I wouldn’t die. It’s silly to die. There it comes. Give it to me.”

After a while the doctor said, “You will go out, Mr. Henry, for a few moments and I will make an examination.”

“He wants to see how I am doing,” Catherine said. “You can come back afterward, darling, can’t he, doctor?”

“Yes,” said the doctor. “I will send word when he can come back.”

I went out the door and down the hall to the room where Catherine was to be after the baby came. I sat in a chair there and looked at the room. I had the paper in my coat that I had bought when I went out for lunch and I read it. It was begi

Poor, poor dear Cat. And this was the price you paid for sleeping together. This was the end of the trap. This was what people got for loving each other. Thank God for gas, anyway. What must it have been like before there were anaesthetics? Once it started, they were in the mill-race. Catherine had a good time in the time of pregnancy. It wasn’t bad. She was hardly ever sick. She was not awfully uncomfortable until toward the last. So now they got her in the end. You never got away with anything. Get away hell! It would have been the same if we had been married fifty times. And what if she should die? She won’t die. People don’t die in childbirth nowadays. That was what all husbands thought. Yes, but what if she should die? She won’t die. She’s just having a bad time. The initial labor is usually protracted. She’s only having a bad time. Afterward we’d say what a bad time and Catherine would say it wasn’t really so bad. But what if she should die? She can’t die. Yes, but what if she should die? She can’t, I tell you. Don’t be a fool. It’s just a bad time. It’s just nature giving her hell. It’s only the first labor, which is almost always protracted. Yes, but what if she should die? She can’t die. Why would she die? What reason is there for her to die? There’s just a child that has to be born, the by-product of good nights in Milan. It makes trouble and is born and then you look after it and get fond of it maybe. But what if she should die? She won’t die. But what if she should die? She won’t. She’s all right. But what if she should die? She can’t die. But what if she should die? Hey, what about that? What if she should die?

The doctor came into the room.

“How does it go, doctor?”

“It doesn’t go,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Just that. I made an examination—” He detailed the result of the examination. “Since then I’ve waited to see. But it doesn’t go.”