In many ways, this chapter recapitulates the opening of the novel: Again, it is autumn, and "the trees were all bare and the roads were muddy." Rinaldi still torments the priest. Two things have changed, however: the fortunes of the Italian troops and Lieutenant Henry himself. Of the latter, Rinaldi observes, "You act like a married man."
Hemingway here employs the character of Rinaldi as a kind of foil, or contrast, to Henry. Henry departed the front due to his injury and has matured as a result of the love he shares with Catherine Barkley. Rinaldi, left behind, has grown increasingly bitter and hostile due to the stress of the war. "This war is killing me," he says, and the statement may be more than metaphorical. Rinaldi believes he has contracted syphilis (a terminal illness), presumably from sex with prostitutes. Again, the author links sex and death, via war.
