In the second section, "A Meal in Spezia," Guy and the narrator stop at a restaurant, where they realize the waitresses double as prostitutes since Mussolini has abolished the brothels. Guy is accosted by one of the girls and the narrator has some fun as the translator between her and Guy. He tells the girl they are German misogynists, which, although it was in jest, could bring hostility: fascism and xenophobia. Also in the restaurant are a sailor and a clean cut man, who tells the girls not to bother with Guy and his friend because "they are worth nothing."
The description of the landscape in the third section, "After the Rain," is bleak and muddy. They stop in a restaurant with no heat, have a sub-par meal, and notice a sad couple watching their breaths in the cold air. The waiter must take Guy to someone's house to use that bathroom because the restaurant doesn't have one. Leaving Genoa, a Fascist on a bicycle stops fines them 25 lire for having mud on their license plate. When the narrator blames the condition of the roads, the Fascist takes offense and ups it to 50 lire.
They return to Ventimiglia where they started. The story is Hemingway's political critique of Mussolini's Italy, reflecting on his return for the baptism certificate. Also, it was a return to the war, where he fell in love with, and had his heart broken by the Red Cross nurse Agnes von Kurowsky. "Che Ti Dice La Patria" translates to "What do you hear from home?" Although Italy may have not been "home" to Hemingway, his WWI time there had a profound impact on his life; and to return there to find it in such a deplorable state sullied the memories of his idealized Italy. The images of wind, rain, and dust shifting to mud supplement the cultural changes in Italy and the changes in the author's perception of it. This, and being in the midst of a divorce, probably only added fervor to the political critique and is also perhaps why Hemingway left out his autobiographical reasons and thoughts about this return trip to Italy.
Hemingway's great invention was the story in which every single thing that is important is happening off the page. (Kenner 31)
It [Italy] will be the starting point of everything. (Hemingway, "The Revolutionist,"IOT 81)
Ernest Hemingway's ability "to put certain words on the page and get the meaning of those words and, as a plus, get a whole shadow meaning which would exist off to one side" (Kenner 32) is easily overlooked in the short story "Che Ti Dice La Patria?"(1) By carefully omitting certain autobiographical details and deleting portions of his manuscripts, Hemingway virtually stripped the narrator and his companion of the personal conflict essential to imbue the story with lasting effect. Because the characters' internal struggles remain so undefined and elusive, an anti-fascist political statement nearly overtakes the text. The result is a hard journalistic kernel, largely ignored by critics.(2) Yet, "Che Ti Dice La Patria?" is more than a "straight journalistic account" (Mellow 347) turned short story. In this story a "shadow meaning" is elucidated by several autobiographical omissions and manuscript deletions. Just before writing "Che Ti Dice La Patria?" Hemingway took a trip to Italy to obtain documentation enabling him to marry Pauline Pfeiffer in the Catholic church, invalidating his marriage to Hadley Richardson. Essentially, Hemingway had to come to terms with the implicit hypocrisy of this act. While he may have desired solace from romanticized memories of his old front and the youthful love he experienced with Agnes von Kurowsky in Italy, Hemingway knew that those days were gone forever and that they had been replaced by fascism. It is out of this experience that Hemingway created the travelers in "Chi Ti Dice La Patria?" As the story implies and the manuscript deletions further reveal, these travelers are seeking something meaningful in Italy. Unfortunately, after numerous negative encounters with the Italian people, they are forced to confront the reality that there is "just the new, ugly futility of it all" (DL 179) existing under an umbrella of deception generated by fascism. The self-serving behavior of the Italian fascists, disturbingly parallel to Hemingway's renunciation of his first marriage for personal motives, gives a shadowy significance to the story: nothing redeeming is to be found in duplicity.
