CHAPTER XXXII

Lying on the floor of the flat-car with the guns beside me under the

canvas I was wet, cold and very hungry. Finally I rolled over and lay

flat on my stomach with my head on my arms. My knee was stiff, but it

had been very satisfactory. Valentini had done a fine job. I had done

half the retreat on foot and swum part of the Tagliamento with his knee.

It was his knee all right. The other knee was mine. Doctors did things

to you and then it was not your body any more. The head was mine, and

the inside of the belly. It was very hungry in there. I could feel it

turn over on itself. The head was mine, but not to use, not to think

with; only to remember and not too much remember.

I could remember Catherine but I knew I would get crazy if I thought

about her when I was not sure yet I would see her, so I would not think

about her, only about her a little, only about her with the car going

slowly and clickingly, and some light through the canvas and my lying

with Catherine on the floor of the car. Hard as the floor of the car to

lie not thinking only feeling, having been away too long, the clothes

wet and the floor moving only a little each time and lonesome inside and

alone with wet clothing and hard floor for a wife.

You did not love the floor of a flat-car nor guns with canvas jackets

and the smell of vaselined metal or a canvas that rain leaked through,

although it is very fine under a canvas and pleasant with guns; but you

loved some one else whom now you knew was not even to be pretended

there; you seeing now very clearly and coldly—not so coldly as clearly

and emptily. You saw emptily, lying on your stomach, having been present

when one army moved back and another came forward. You had lost your

cars and your men as a floorwalker loses the stock of his department in

a fire. There was, however, no insurance. You were out of it now. You

had no more obligation. If they shot floorwalkers after a fire in the

department store because they spoke with an accent they had always had,

then certainly the floorwalkers would not be expected to return when the

store opened again for business. They might seek other employment; if

there was any other employment and the police did not get them.

Anger was washed away in the river along with any obligation. Although

that ceased when the carabiniere put his hands on my collar. I would

like to have had the uniform off although I did not care much about the

outward forms. I had taken off the stars, but that was for convenience.

It was no point of honor. I was not against them. I was through. I

wished them all the luck. There were the good ones, and the brave ones,

and the calm ones and the sensible ones, and they deserved it. But it

was not my show any more and I wished this bloody train would get to

Mestre and I would eat and stop thinking. I would have to stop.

Piani would tell them they had shot me. They went through the pockets

and took the papers of the people they shot. They would not have my

papers. They might call me drowned. I wondered what they would hear in

the States. Dead from wounds and other causes. Good Christ I was hungry.

I wondered what had become of the priest at the mess. And Rinaldi. He

was probably at Pordenone. If they had not gone further back. Well, I

would never see him now. I would never see any of them now. That life

was over. I did not think he had syphilis. It was not a serious disease

anyway if you took it in time, they said. But he would worry. I would

worry too if I had it. Any one would worry.

I was not made to think. I was made to eat. My God, yes. Eat and drink

and sleep with Catherine. To-night maybe. No that was impossible. But

to-morrow night, and a good meal and sheets and never going away again

except together. Probably have to go damned quickly. She would go. I

knew she would go. When would we go? That was something to think about.

It was getting dark. I lay and thought where we would go. There were

many places.