1. “There,
darling. Now you’re all clean inside and out. Tell me. How many
people have you ever loved?”
“Nobody.”
“Not even me?”
“Yes, you.”
“How many others really?”
“None.”
“How many have you—how do you say it?—stayed with?”
“None.”
“You’re lying to me.”
“Yes.”
“It’s all right. Keep right on lying to me. That’s
what I want you to do. Were they pretty?”
Soon after Henry arrives at the American
hospital in Milan, his relationship with Catherine Barkley becomes
passionate. Initially a means of alleviating the pain of war and
private grief, their affair continues to serve the very practical
purpose of masking life’s difficulties. As this passage from Chapter
XVI illustrates, their game of love distracts them from unpleasant
circumstances—here, a procedure wherein Catherine “cleans out” Henry’s
insides to prepare him for his operation. Indeed, Hemingway washes
over the details of the procedure by having Catherine say, “There,
darling. Now you’re all clean inside and out.” At this point, however,
the couple’s game, though acknowledged by Catherine as a lie, is
becoming more complicated. The reader is unsure of the depth of
feeling that inspires Henry’s declaration of love and his honesty
about sleeping with other women. This dialogue establishes the importance
of illusion in Catherine and Henry’s budding relationship.
