猪牙皂A VERY SHORT STORY
Ernest Hemingway
One hot evening in Padua1 they carried him up onto the roof and he could look out over the top of the town. There were chimney swifts in the sky. After a while it got dark and the archlights came out. The others went down and took the bottles with them. He and Luz could hear them below on the balcony. Luz sat on the bed. She was cool and fresh in the hot night.
Luz stayed on night duty for three months. They were glad to let her. When they operated on him she prepared him for the operating table; and they had a joke about friend or enema2. He went under the anaesthetic holding tight on to himlf so he would not blab about anything during the silly, talky time. After he got on crutches he ud to take the temperatures so Luz would not have to get up from the bed. There were only a few patients, and they all knew about it. They all liked Luz. As he walked back along the halls he thought of Luz in his bed.
Before he went back to the front they went into the Duomo3 and prayed. It was dim and quiet, and there were other people praying. They wanted to get married, but there was not enough time for the banns4, and neither of them had birth certificates. They felt as though they were married, but they wanted everyone to know about it, and to make it so they could not lo it.
开心笑话大全爆笑
Luz wrote him many letters that he never got until after the armistice. Fifteen came in a bunch to the front and he sorted them by the dates and read them all straight through. They were all about the hospital, and how much she loved him and how it was impossible to get along without him and how terrible it was missing him at night. 远古十大猛兽
After the armistice they agreed he should go home to get a job so they might be married. Luz would not come home until he had a good job and could come to New York to meet her. It was understood he would not drink, and he did not want to e his friends or anyone in the States. Only to get a job and be married. On the train from Padua to Milan白勺5英语鬼故事 they quarreled about her not being willing to come home at once. When they had to say g
ood-bye, in the station at Milan, they kisd good-bye, but were not finished with the quarrel. He felt sick about saying good-bye like that. 迷路的小花鸭
He went to America on a boat from Genoa6. Luz went back to Pordonone to open a hospital. It was lonely and rainy there, and there was a battalion of arditi7 quartered in the town. Living in the muddy, rainy town in the winter, the major of the battalion made love to Luz, and she had never known Italians before, and finally wrote to the States that theirs had only been a boy and girl affair. She was sorry, and she knew he would probably not be able to understand, but might some day forgive her, and be grateful to her, and she expected, absolutely unexpectedly, to be married in the spring. She loved him as always, but she realized now it was only a boy and girl love. She hoped he would have a great career, and believed in him absolutely. She knew it was for the best.
The major did not marry her in the spring, or any other time. Luz never got an answer to the letter to Chicago about it. A short time after he contracted gonorrhea from a sales girl in a loop department store while riding in a taxicab through Lincoln Park.
Notes：
1. Padua: a city in northeastern Italy, west of Venice (帕多瓦).
2. enema: the injection of liquid inti the rectum for cleansing, as a laxative or for other purpos (灌肠剂).
3. the Duomo: (Italian) the Cathedral.
盐菜回锅肉
4. the banns: the public annoucement in church of a n intended marriage.
5. Milan: a city in northern Italy (米兰),
6. Genoa: a aport in northeastern Italy, south of Milan (热那亚).
7. arditi: assult troops of the Italian army, 1915-1918.
工地宿舍
Questions:
1. When and where did the story take place? What was the background of the story?
2. What or who do you think is responsible for the failure of the love between the protagonist and Luz? What kind of person is the protagonist? And Luz?
3. Who is the narrator? What is the relation between the narrtor and the protagonist? Is the story’s point of view objective or subjective?
4. What is Hemingway’s intention of this mini-story? Do you know Hemingway Code? Do you think it’s helpful for you to understand this story?
