A Farewell to Arms) by Ernest Hemingway,

 (A Farewell to Arms)

In the heart of a Europe torn apart by World War I, Frederic Henry, a young American who volunteered as an ambulance driver for the Italian army, saw the smoke of the cannons and the sounds of the shelling as a pale backdrop to his life suspended between danger and nothingness. Little did he know that love awaited him, in a place where one could only expect death.

In a hospital, after sustaining a painful leg injury, he met Catherine Barclay, a beautiful British nurse whose eyes held a mysterious sadness over the loss of her former fiancé in the war. Their conversation began timidly, but it quickly turned into a spark that ignited their hearts amid a world collapsing.

The more intense the war became, the more they became attached to each other.

On cold Italian nights, they would escape the whizzing bullets into the warmth of glances and whispered words.

They created a small world of their own, while the world around them collapsed.

But war leaves little time for lovers.

Frederick was forced to return to the front, where he witnessed horrors he had never imagined.

When the command ordered the execution of anyone who retreated, he decided to flee... and bid farewell to war forever.

The two lovers fled to Switzerland, a place of safety and tranquility, where Catherine began her pregnancy.

But the happiness was temporary.

In the delivery room, as Frederick waited for the sound of life, the silence of death came to him.

Catherine left, and their child with her.

Frederick went out into the rain, not caring about anything: no war, no love, no homeland.

He remained alone, saying to the world in tearful silence: "Goodbye to war... and goodbye to love."

After Catherine's death, Frederick's world had stopped. It wasn't just sadness he felt, but a heavy emptiness, like the silence of the front lines after a fierce battle... only more brutal.

In the days following his death, Frederick wandered as if he had lost his compass.

The mountains, once a symbol of escape and safety, had turned into towering walls, trapping him in his memories.

There was no longer a war to flee from, no peace to return to.

All that remained were the shadows of a woman he had truly loved, and a child whose first cry he had never heard.

He no longer wrote, no longer spoke much, only walked.

Everything he had in this world ended in a cold, white room, where his last words were whispers from Catherine as she bid him farewell with a weary smile:

"Don't be afraid, dear... everything will be all right."

But nothing was right.

Frederick left the hospital in the rain, carrying nothing... no flowers, no child, no hand holding his.

He was alone, in an empty world, whispering to the rain and absence:

"Goodbye to the war... and farewell to the weapons... and farewell to her."

The story ended, not with an explosion or a dramatic ending, but with a heavy silence...

Just as all real wars end—no one wins, and everyone loses something.