Catherine got off at the lower floor where the nurses lived and I went on up and went down the hall on crutches to my room sometimes I undressed and got into bed and sometimes I sat out on the balcony with my leg up on another chair and watched the swallows over the roofs and waited for Catherine. I paid the driver, and then we rode upstairs in the elevator.

At the door of the hospital the porter came out to help with the crutches. Then we got into an open carriage outside the galleria in front of the cathedral and rode to the hospital. They were to eat in the night when we were hungry. They had no wine waiter because of the war and George would smile ashamedly when I asked about wines like fresa.Īfter dinner we walked through the galleria, past the other restaurants and the shops with their steel shutters down, and stopped at the little place where they sold sandwiches ham and lettuce sandwiches and anchovy sandwiches made of very tiny brown glazed rolls and only about as long as your finger. We drank dry white capri iced in a bucket although we tried many of the other wines, fresa, barbera and the sweet white wines. He was a fine waiter and we let him order the meal while we looked at the people, and the great galleria in the dusk, and each other.

The waiters came in and out and there were people going by and candles with shades on the tablecloths and after we decided that we liked the Gran Italia best, George, the head-waiter, saved us a table. Afterward when I could get around on crutches we went to dinner at Biffi’s or the Gran Italia and sat at the tables outside on the floor of the galleria. If we let our hands touch, just the side of my hand touching hers, we were excited. I remember the carriage, the horse going slowly, and up ahead the back of the driver with his varnished high hat, and Catherine Barkley sitting beside me. When I could go out we rode in a carriage in the park.

A call to arms hemingway