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Lieutenant Frederic Henry, a young American ambulance driver with the Italian army during World War I, takes a winter leave from the front. When he returns, he meets and quickly falls in love with Catherine Barkley, an English nurse's aide in the town's British hospital. She mourns the death of her fiancé from the war last year, and she eagerly enters the pleasurable diversion the game of love offers with Henry. Henry, too, is revived …

…move to the town of Lausanne in the spring to be close to its hospital, and Catherine soon goes into labor. The pregnancy is lengthy and painful, and the baby, delivered through a Caesarean, is stillborn. Catherine dies soon after of multiple hemorrhages with Henry by her side. He tries to say goodbye to her, but it is like saying goodbye to a statue, and he walks back to his hotel room in the rain.