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The summer goes on and Henry\'s legs heal enough to let him walk with a cane. He takes daily treatments at another hospital but can\'t wait to return to Catherine in the evening. Ironically, the more he recovers, the less he can be seen with her, because nurses are forbidden to accompany patients who don\'t need them. He follows the war news; the only conclusions he can draw are that too many men are getting killed and that the war looks as if it\'s going to go on forever.
On his excursions outside the hospital he meets two members of a small American colony in Milan, Mr. and Mrs. Meyers. He is a shady individual fond of horse racing; she is an overbearing motherly type who takes gifts to her \"dear boys\" in the hospital. Later Henry meets two other Americans, tenors trying to break into opera under Italian names.
Then there\'s Ettore Moretti, the war lover. He thinks medals are fine, but wound stripes are really something to be proud of. He predicts that he will be a colonel before the war is over. Henry thinks he\'s a legitimate hero but a bore. Catherine, with the traditional British dislike of bragging and show, cannot stand him.
The chapter closes with Frederic and Catherine back in their room in the hospital. Outside it is raining. Catherine reveals that the rain scares her because she sees herself \"dead in it.\" Henry tries to comfort her, to tell her it\'s all nonsense.
NOTE: SYMBOLISM The rain is obviously more than just rain here. Whether Hemingway intends it as a full-fledged symbol or just as rotten weather that triggers morbid thoughts is not clear. Remember the rain shown in the opening chapter, when the troops marching with their protruding capes were seen as \"gone with child.\" Now Catherine is gloom and afraid in the rain. Later in the book we\'ll see rain frequently--but not invariably--linked to illness and death. Just how far you want to take such symbolism is up to you; Hemingway\'s critics have had various opinions on the matter. But where symbolism is concerned it\'s usually better to sin by omission than by commission. A symbol should be thought of as being what it physically is--rain, in this case--as well as being what it symbolizes. The danger in symbol-hunting is that everything in a book becomes fair game.
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