FAREWELL TO ARMS BY ERNEST HEMINGWAY

In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves. The plain was rich with crops; there were many orchards of fruit trees and beyond the plain the mountains were brown and bare.

FIND A SYNONIMIC SENTENCE.

There were mists over the river and clouds on the mountain and the trucks splashed mud on the road and the troops were muddy and wet in their capes; their rifles were wet and under their capes the two leather cartridge-boxes on the front of the belts, gray leather boxes heavy with the packs of clips of thin, long 6.5 mm. cartridges, bulged forward under the capes so that the men, passing on the road, marched as though they were six months gone with child. There were small gray motor cars that passed going very fast; usually there was an officer on the seat with the driver and more officers in the back seat. They splashed more mud than the camions even and if one of the officers in the back was very small and sitting between two generals, he himself so small that you could not see his face but only the top of his cap and his narrow back, and if the car went especially fast it was probably the King. He lived in Udine and came out in this way nearly every day to see how things were going, and things went very badly. At the start of the winter came the permanent rain and with the rain came the cholera. But it was checked and in the end only seven thousand died of it in the army.

FINISH THIS PART OF THE TEXT

 The snow _____________________, the bare ground was covered, the stumps of trees projected, there was snow on the guns and there were paths in the snow going back to the latrines behind trenches.

That night in the mess after the spaghetti course, which every one ate very quickly and seriously, __________________________ until the loose strands hung clear then lowering it into the mouth, or else using a continuous lift and sucking into the mouth, helping ourselves to wine from the grass-covered gallon flask

FILL IN THE GAP WITH THE PROPER SENTENCE

The captain spoke pidgin Italian for my doubtful benefit, in order that I might understand perfectly, that nothing should be lost. “Priest today with girls,” the captain said looking at the priest and at me. The priest smiled and blushed and shook his head.

WHAT KIND OF SPEECH DID THE CAPTAIN USE?

This captain baited him often. “Not true?” asked the captain. “To-day I see priest with girls.” “No,” said the priest. The other officers were amused at the baiting. “Priest not with girls,” went on the captain. “Priest never with girls,” he explained to me.

WHAT DOES THE AUTHOR MEAN WHILE USING THE WORD BAITED HIM?

He took my glass and filled it, looking at my eyes all the time, but not losing sight of the priest. “Priest every night five against one.” Every one at the table laughed. “You understand? Priest every night five against one.” He made a gesture and laughed loudly.

WHAT DOES THE AUTHOR MEAN BY THIS SENTENCE

“Priest every night five against one.”

A Farewell to Arms is set against the historical and geographical background of World War I. 

WHAT DOES THIS SENTENCE MEAN? 

World War I, or the Great War as it was then known, began in August 1914 with the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand. The war pitted the Central Powers (Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire)

FINISH THIS PART OF THE TEXT WITH THE APPROPRIATE SENTENCE

And yet, A Farewell to Arms is at the same time a tender love story — one of the most tender and affecting ever written. It has been compared to William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, and the reference is an apt one. Both stories concern young lovers antagonized by their societies. (In Shakespeare's play, the Montague-Capulet blood feud is the problem; in Hemingway's novel, the Great War is to blame.) Both stories seem to vibrate with a sickening sense of doom that only increases as the stories near their respective conclusions. And both end in heartbreaking tragedy. If not one of the greatest love stories ever told, A Farewell to Arms is certainly among the greatest of the twentieth century.

CHOOSE CORRECTLY.