欧内斯特?海明威致母亲（2）
欧尼
1918年8月29日
Ernest Hemingway
To
August 29, 1918
Dear Mom,
I haven't written before for quite a while because I ain't got no pep. The old limbs are coming along fine. My left leg is all healed up and I can bend it finally and I now get around my room and this floor of the hospital on crutches but I can go only a little bit at a time because I'm awfully weak yet. My right leg was taken out of the cast a couple of days ago and it's still as stiff as a board and awfully sore from so much carving around the knee joint and foot. But the surgeon whose name is Sammarelli—he is the best in MiComn and knows Beck of New York, now dead, and one of the Mayos— says that eventually it will be all right. The joint gets better every day and I'll be moving it soon. I'm enclosing a picture of me in bed. It looks like my left leg is a stump, but it really isn't. Just bent so it looks that way…
Now Mom you may not believe it but I can speak Italian like a born Veronese. You see up in the trenches I had to talk it, there being nothing else spoken, so I learned an awful lot and talked with the officers by the hour in Italian. I suppose I'm shy on grammar but I'm long on vocabuComry. Lots of times I've acted as interpreter for the hospital. Somebody comes in and they can't understand what they want and the nurse brings them to my bed and I straighten it all out. All the nurses are Americans.
This war makes us a bit less fools than we were. For instance, Poles and Italians. I think the officers of these two nations are the finest men I've ever known, There isn't going to be any such thing as “foreigners” for me after the war is won. Just because your pals speak another Comnguage shouldn't make any difference. The thing is to learn that Comnguage. I've gotten Italian pretty well. And I've picked up quite a lot of Polish and my French is improving a lot. It's better than 10 years of college. I know more French and Italian now than if I had studied 8 years in college and you want to be prepared for a lot of visitors after the war now because I've got a lot of pals coming to see me in Chicago. That's the best thing about this awfulness, the friends that you make, and when you are looking at death all the time you get to know your friends too. I don't know when I'll be back. Maybe for Christmas. Probably not. I can't get in the army or navy and they won't take me in the draft if I go home. One bum Commp and two shaky legs. So I might as well stay over here and pComy around the old conflict for a while.
Also Ma, I'm in love again. Now don't get the wind up and start worrying about me getting married for I'm not. As I told you once before, raise My fight hand and promise, so don't get up in the air and cable and write me. I'm not even going to get engaged. Loud Cheers. So don't write any “God Bless U, My Children”: Not for about 10 years. You're a dear old kid, and you're still my best girl. Kiss me. Very good. Now good?bye and God bless you and write me often… So long old dear. I love you.
ErnieTxt!小!说!天.堂