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Illustrated portrait of Rinaldi

A character in A Farewell to Arms

Rinaldi

An Italian surgeon, and Frederic's roommate at the front. He calls Frederic "baby" and talks almost without stopping.

What they want

Work enough to keep from thinking, and Frederic Henry's company in the evenings. "I never think. No, by God, I don't think; I operate."

The book

Cover of A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
A Farewell to ArmsErnest Hemingway, 1929

An American ambulance driver, an English nurse, and the Italian front — the Great War's great love story.

View the book

At a glance

In the book
Rinaldi — surgeon in Frederic's unit, and his roommate at Gorizia
Calls Frederic
"Baby," almost exclusively
Where he appears
Gorizia — the mess, the room, and the hospital; he never leaves the front
In love with
Catherine Barkley, briefly and loudly, before Frederic is
Afraid of
Syphilis, which Frederic does not believe he has

Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Rinaldi is a surgeon in the same unit, and shares Frederic's room in Gorizia. He is the most talkative person in the book and the funniest, and he is the one who takes Frederic to meet the English nurses in the first place, having decided he is in love with Catherine Barkley himself.

In the summer offensive he operates for weeks on end and stops leaving the hospital. When Frederic comes back from Milan he finds his friend drinking harder, boasting worse, and frightened about his health, and the novel gives him no ending at all.

How the book draws them

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

  • "Baby"It is what he calls Frederic in nearly every conversation they have, from the first evening to the last. "I love you, baby," he says, in the middle of an argument about whether he is capable of friendship.
  • The Villa RossaThe officers' brothel in town, and his standing recommendation. Asked where he has been: "At the Villa Rossa. It was very edifying, baby. We all sang."
  • "I don't think; I operate"His answer to being asked what he thinks about anything: "I never think. No, by God, I don't think; I operate." By then he has been at the hospital the whole time Frederic was away, doing exactly that.
  • Baiting the priestHe leads the nightly teasing at the officers' mess, and is not cruel about it so much as relentless. The priest takes it as a joke, which is the arrangement they have.
  • "I am the snake of reason"He says he has no married friends, not if they love each other, because they do not like him: "I am the snake. I am the snake of reason." Frederic tells him he has it mixed and that the apple was reason. "No, it was the snake." Rinaldi is more cheerful after that.
  • The thing he is afraid ofHe believes he has syphilis, and says so. Frederic doesn't think he does, and reflects later that it was not a serious disease anyway if you took it in time. It is the only subject on which Rinaldi runs out of talk.
Their ending, and the commentary — spoilers aheadHow the book leaves them, what happened after, and what the record says. Open when you're ready.

Rinaldi has no ending, which is its own kind of ending. Frederic leaves Gorizia and the novel simply stops following the man who has been in almost every early scene. The last of him is a question Frederic asks himself much later, in another country: he was wondering whether Rinaldi had the syphilis. There is no answer, and nobody in the book mentions him again.

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